ARCHIV - 11.01.2022, Berlin: Lena Kreck (Die Linke), Berliner Senatorin für Justiz, Vielfalt und Antidiskriminierung, spricht während einem Interview mit der Deutschen Presse-Agentur dpa in ihrem Büro in der Senatsverwaltung für Justiz, Vielfalt und Antidiskriminierung. Sie will Gefängnisstrafen als Ersatz für nicht gezahlte Geldstrafen vermeiden. Foto: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++

Berlin’s Justice Senator Lena Kreck (left) wants to present measures by the end of September with the help of which the desolate IT situation in the judiciary is to be improved. “In September we are in a position where we can speak,” Kreck said on Monday at the second special session of the Legal Affairs Committee on the subject.

The reason for the meeting was a risk analysis of judicial IT classified as confidential, which had identified the massive need for restructuring in almost 200 pages of relentless analysis.

Digital policy, regulation, artificial intelligence: the briefing on digitization

The basis for the announced catalog of measures is likely to be an overview by the company “HiSolutions” called a “description of targets”, which, like the risk analysis, is marked as confidential and is available exclusively to the Tagesspiegel.

The draft proposes professional, technical and organizational measures to upgrade the judicial IT, which has been in the public eye since the successful hacker attack on the Superior Court in September 2019.

This includes the accelerated abolition of some 30-year-old programs as well as the creation of the organizational prerequisites for joining more state associations in the future.

From the point of view of the experts, this requires “independent organizational units that are centrally responsible for the judiciary of the respective countries and are structured accordingly”, which only take care of the topics of digitization and cooperation in the country associations. This has been standard in other countries for years, but there is no such unit in Berlin.

In addition, the experts recommend a considerable tightening of the timetable for the introduction of modern programs. For example, the “ForumStar” program, which is intended to be a “leading subject procedure”, already has some considerable organisational, professional and technical risks.

The development of the successor program “should be accelerated in order to force a subsequent replacement of ForumStar,” it says.

Kreck, who had assigned a priority role to the renewal of IT during her administration, confirmed the desolate situation of the judiciary IT on Monday. “We have no disagreement that a lot is amiss,” explained Kreck and added: “We have a problem, yes, of course.”

It takes “staying power”, the renewal must be approached “systematically, seriously and sustainably”, she explained.

Marc Böttcher, CEO of the ITDZ, spoke of “challenges that are not very small”. Successful attacks like those on the Superior Court could happen again at any time, explained Böttcher and added. “Modern specialist procedures would help us to create more risk minimization.”

The lifting of the confidentiality of a large part of the first special session caused irritation on Monday. CDU and FDP had applied for this, SPD, Greens and Left agreed – contrary to the voting behavior 14 days ago.

The conditions for the classification suggested by Kreck were probably not met, it said on Monday behind the scenes. The transcript of the originally confidential part of the meeting is now to be published.