Massive disruptions in electronic legal transactions
Presumably as a result of an update, the federal government's "Mein-Justizpostfach" portal has not been accessible for several days.
- Tim Gerber
Users of an electronic mailbox for citizens and organizations (eBO) via the "My Justice Mailbox" (MJP) portal of the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ) currently have no access to their correspondence. When accessing the homepage, a message appears stating that maintenance work is currently being carried out. However, no such work had been announced. It is also not stated here when the maintenance work should be completed.
On a link to the portal of the Federal ID of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, however, there is a note that there have been technical problems with the use of the MJP since August 19, 2024 in the afternoon. The problem is currently being analyzed and the MJP cannot be used. It is expected to be available again in the late afternoon of today, August 22.
Introduced at the end of 2023
Citizens and private-law organizations such as associations and companies can use the MJP mailboxes introduced at the end of last year to participate in electronic legal transactions with authorities, courts, lawyers and the like. A detailed description of the possibilities for private individuals to participate in electronic legal transactions can be found in the article"Postage-free" from c't issue 7/2024 on page 158. Since the beginning of the month, even the Federal Constitutional Court has been participating in electronic legal transactions, which are already mandatory for all courts, authorities, lawyers and others in 2018.
Among other things, authorities and courts can deliver decisions to users via the mailbox and thus effectively set deadlines for any appeals. For those affected, the outage is therefore extremely unfortunate.
Anyone who has not saved the delivered and sent documents from the portal locally currently has no access. Without access, it is difficult to track the progress of a communication anyway. In order not to suffer any disadvantages if deadlines are missed due to the technical failure of the MJP, those affected must be able to prove this to the relevant authority or in court. However, apart from the two reports on the internet, there are currently no official confirmations.
Misleading feedback
Users who contacted the Bund-ID support team at the Information Technology Center (ITZ-Bund) individually only received the following message: "However, we would like to inform you that we are currently analyzing your problem and will provide you with a description of the solution as soon as the process has been completed. We are working hard to solve the problem."
The wording gives the impression that this is an individual problem of the user and not a technical problem of the operator of the MJP. Formally, the BMJ is responsible for this, the BMI for the linked federal ID, the ITZ for the technical operation and a publicly owned limited company in Bremen for the development.
The distributed responsibilities, which are probably also due to the inconsistent communication between the agencies involved about the failure, are symptomatic of digitization projects in public administration. Heise online has asked the authorities involved in the MJP to explain the background and causes as well as possible remedies for users, such as official confirmations of the outage, in a collective inquiry, which is probably still being processed, especially as it would also require coordination between them. As soon as the information is available, we will provide further information here.
(tig)