German Law Archive |
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Establishing Foreign Law in a German Court* |
The English position on proof of foreign law has been described in Rule
18 of Dicey and Morris1 which breaks down into the
following principles.
(1) Foreign law is a fact, so that (i) foreign law must be pleaded
and (ii) proved unless e.g. it is admitted, (2) to the satisfaction of the
judge; (3) in general, foreign law must be proved by (i) expert evidence
(usually by foreign practitioners), while (ii) the court will not conduct
its own rersearch; (4) the burden of proof lies on the party who bases his
claim or defence on it; if this party fails, the court will apply English
law.
None of the above is true in Germany.
Both English and German rules are subject to some exceptions, which make
them more workable and also somewhat more reconcilable with each other.
Before discussing the details, however, some general remarks about the
German law on establishing foreign law might be appropriate.
The establishment of foreign law in German civil proceedings is
governed by § 293 Zivilprozeßordnung (Code of Civil Procedure,
ZPO), which was enacted in 1877. This provision reads as follows:
§ 293 Zivilprozeßordnung | § 293 Code of Civil Procedure |
Das in einem anderen Staate geltende Recht, die Gewohnheitsrechte und Statuten bedürfen des Beweises nur insofern, als sie dem Gericht unbekannt sind. Bei Ermittlung dieser Rechtsnormen ist das Gericht auf die von den Parteien beigebrachten Nachweise nicht beschränkt; es ist befugt, auch andere Erkenntnisquellen zu benutzen und zum Zwecke einer solchen Benutzung das Erforderliche anzuordnen. | The law which is in force in another state, customary law and by-laws require proof only to such extent as they are unknown to the court. In the establishment of these legal norms, the court is not limited to the evidence brought forward by the parties; it is empowered to make use of other sources of knowledge and to order whatever is necessary for the purpose of such utilization. |
Germany, which shares borders with nine other countries, has a fairly
internationally minded Private International Law, which for a number of
reasons leads more frequently to the application of foreign law than the
English law of conflicts. For family and inheritance law in particular,
citizenship (and not domicile) is used as the main criterion for finding
the applicable law, while jurisdiction is generally based on residence.2
As the number of foreigners residing in Germany (some 6.9 million) roughly
equals the total population of Switzerland, 3
this implies that the number of German court proceedings involving foreign
family or succession law is likely to be in the region of the total number
of all court proceedings in Switzerland which involve family or
inheritance law. At the same time, Germany's position in world trade
entails substantial international commercial litigation in Germany, often
involving cases to which foreign law applies.
The fact that foreign law is regarded as law can be taken from the
wording of § 293 ZPO, which treats foreign law on the same
footing as German customary law and certain ancient German by-laws, which,
we must assume, were not easy to ascertain in 1877. This also accounts for
two other rules which have been mentioned above, i.e. that whether foreign
law applies to a given case is no more in the discretion of the parties
than whether German law applies, and that parties cannot bind the court by
agreeing on the position of a foreign law.
If German private international law points to a foreign law, the
court must disclose this to the parties under § 139 ZPO if they were
previously unaware of this fact. However, if both parties plead under
German law, courts will regularly construe this as a choice of German law
by the parties, even if they were seemingly unaware of the possibility
that foreign law might apply to their case, 4
a position which has received much criticism by German scholars.
5 However, such agreements are valid only to
the extent that German private international law allows parties to choose
the applicable law, which is mainly the case in contracts and torts. This
excludes in particular most questions relating to company, property,
family and inheritance law.6
The main difference in the treatment of German and foreign law is
therefore that courts are required to know German law (iura novit curia),
including German private international law, but are not required to have
knowledge of foreign law, which therefore can be established by hearing
evidence.
While § 293 ZPO mentions "evidence brought forward by the
parties", this provision has nevertheless traditionally been
understood to oblige the courts to take of their own motion all reasonable
steps to establish foreign law.7
As can be taken from § 293 ZPO, no evidence needs to be heard if
the court knows the foreign law. This rule is not entirely unknown in
English law, where foreign law may sometimes be judicially noticed as a
notorious fact, e.g. that roulette is not unlawful in Monte Carlo.8
However, German courts are authorized and sometimes expected to conduct
their own research into foreign law. They can often rely on literature on
foreign laws in German language. For example, extensive and rather up to
date documentation on foreign family and inheritance laws is available and
commonly used by practitioners and courts alike,9
so that usually experts will be appointed only in complicated family or
succession law cases.
If both parties agree on foreign law to take a certain position,
courts may take this into account when establishing foreign law. This will
reduce the court's duty to establish the foreign law as it is, but will
not relieve the court entirely from this duty. Most certainly, foreign law
cannot be "admitted". In the end, parties can therefore bind the
court in its reading of foreign law no more than in its interpretation of
German law.
§ 293 ZPO makes it clear that parties are free to bring forward
their own evidence. This includes expert opinions on foreign law. However,
a party which calls on its own expert risks to go home with the costs for
this expert even if this party eventually wins the case, while the costs
for a court appointed expert follow the event.
As regards establishing foreign law, courts are free in their choice of
evidence under § 293 ZPO. Evidence can therefore include information
obtained from a foreign embassy, textbooks, court decisions or expert
opinions from other proceedings, which are regularly collected and
published in Germany.10 However, as all
these methods seem appropriate under English law provided that parties
agree on them, there is less of a difference between the two legal systems
than appears on first sight.
In more serious or complicated cases, German courts will appoint an
expert. The court is free to choose the person of the expert and is bound
only by an agreement of both parties to this effect, § 404 (4) ZPO.
Most commonly, the court will choose a German professor of
comparative law, or one of the Max-Planck-Institutes. This appears unusual
from the English perspective where preference is given to foreign
practitioners. The difference has certainly something to do with the fact
that English law has been developed by practitioners, while German law has
traditionally been heavily influenced by academics. It should also be
mentioned that Germany has a strong tradition in Comparative Law. There
are some fifty chairs for comparative law in Germany and several
Max-Planck-Institutes.11 For example, the
University of Freiburg has four chairs in comparative civil law (including
civil procedure), and a total of some fifteen academic staff, while the
Max-Planck-Institute on foreign civil and private international law in
Hamburg relies on an academic staff of some forty to fifty researchers12
and the best comparative law library I know of.
In spite of the strong German reliance on academic experience, the
Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) ruled in 1991 that, if the
academic expert is unable to establish the foreign law as practised by the
courts in this country, the German court is under the duty to appoint a
foreign expert.13 This sounds very plausible and
reasonable. Ironically, in this case the lower courts had examined a total
of seven expert opinions on a specific area of the Venezuelan law of
maritime liens provided by the parties, and one expert opinion which the
court of second instance had obtained from the Hamburg
Max-Planck-Institute, and it was the Max-Planck-Institute which had found
the only relevant Venezuelan court decision in this area, a fact which the
Bundesgerichtshof had evidently overlooked.14
If the expert is resident in Germany, the court will send the entire
file to the expert, together with a formal decision which lists the
questions which the expert is required to answer. Under German law, court
files must not be sent abroad. The expert is usually given a time limit
for answering the questions in writing (extensions are not infrequently
granted). The court and either party can require the expert to attend the
hearing and explain the opinion.15 It is
difficult for the expert to refuse the court's request, unless this person
has little expertise in the area in question. Remuneration of the expert
is governed by an Act; generally, experts can claim DM 40 to DM 70 per
hour and up to 50% more in difficult cases.16
Generally, courts are free to rely on the European Convention on
Information on Foreign Law. Figures for 1975-1986 indicate that this
Convention is used more in Germany than in most other member states; a
total of 281 German request to other member states compares to a total of
93 requests made to Germany by other member states.17
Nevertheless, the less than twenty-five German requests per year are
clearly outnumbered by hundreds of expert opinions per annum.
There is some common ground between the German and English position
after all: foreign law must generally be applied the same way as it is
applied by the courts in the country in question. It is therefore
generally not sufficient to rely on textbooks and statutes. This has
already been mentioned above in the context of the Venezuelan maritime
lien case. This also implies that German courts are required to review
legislation to the same extent as the courts in this country. If the
question under consideration has not been decided by foreign courts,
German and apparently also English courts are authorized to develop the
law as the foreign court presumably would.18
However, German courts will do this only in cases of necessity. The
general rule has been aptly described by Goldschmidt: courts are
architects in the application of their own law, and photographers in the
application of foreign law.19
Under German law, no presumption operates about the content of
foreign law.20 From a German perspective,
the traditional English rule that in absence of evidence to the contrary,
foreign law is presumed to be the same as English 21
appears to be the most daring and least accurate of all legal
presumptions, and it is reassuring to see that this rule no longer enjoys
unanimous support.22
Only if there is no way of establishing the position of foreign law
are German courts relieved from applying this law.23
Generally, this is only accepted for remote corners of the world or if the
legal situation on the ground cannot be established, e.g. after
revolutionary changes in the country in question.24
If there is another foreign legal system which is accessible and related
to the inaccessible law, preference can be given to the former,
25 e.g. to English law in cases where the
legal situation cannot be established as regards a former British colony.
Otherwise, courts will apply German law. An action must not be dismissed
on the ground that foreign law could not be proved.26
However, the main difference in this area seems to be that English courts
are more likely to assume a position of non liquet than German courts.
On second look, it seems that there are three main differences between
English and German law in this area, namely a) whether the application and
content of foreign law are at the disposition of the parties, b) whether
the parties or the court must investigate foreign law, and c) which types
of experts are employed.
a) The English system which allows parties to decide whether or not
foreign law should apply to their case is based on the frequent equation
of jurisdiction and applicable law, in particular in family law matters.
Foreigners who live in England will therefore either obtain no divorce in
this country or a divorce under English law,27
which often will not be recognized in their country of origin and can lead
to endless trouble in subsequent maintenance, matrimonial property,
custody, bigamy, pension and inheritance disputes, and which would be hard
for Germany to impose on its nearly 7 Million foreign residents. If
English courts applied foreign divorce law, I doubt whether the voluntary
nature of pleading foreign law could be sustained.
b) The fact that courts are under the duty to establish foreign law
is similarly related to the goal of international legal harmony, i.e. that
German judgments involving foreign law should generally be recognizeable
and enforceable abroad, which also explains why parties cannot bind the
court in their reading of foreign law. This is also related to the general
German approach that the finding of law is the court's duty, and that
parties are not required to plead the law. As regards a) and b), it is
perhaps fair to say that the English approach keeps English proceedings
simple, while the German approach keeps international recognition simple
and reduces subsequent liti-gation. Similarly, the English approach will
often suit better the parties, while the German approach takes more into
account third party interests which are often at stake in international
litigation. This also explains why German courts allow choice of law (and
thus "volunatary pleading") in contracts and torts, but
generally not in family, inheritance, property and company law.
c) Whether foreign practitioners or local academics are better suited
as experts on foreign law is difficult to say and depends on the legal
environment and the individual circumstances of the case. Undeniably,
foreign practitioner experts will usually have the better knowledge of
foreign law, and that is the best reason for employing them. But transfer
is more difficult, as foreign law needs to be woven carefully into a
domestic procedural and often also substantive law pattern,28
a task which a domestic comparatist might be better suited for than a
foreign practitioner. Language tends to be more of a problem with foreign
practitioners; while they have no language problem in finding the position
of foreign law, there is more of a barrier in communicating the findings
to the court and to the parties. Also, unlike in Britain, in many other
countries practitioners have little experience in explaining the law to a
court. The German preference for academics and the English preference for
practitioners are perhaps based on the same erroneous assumption, i.e.
that foreign laws are similar to the law of the forum.
* This article was presented on 30 June 1994 during the first of a series of Joint Workshops on Comparative Litigation Practice organised by The British Institute of International and Comparative Law and The British-German Jurists Association.
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© 1994 Gerhard Dannemann