Digitale Urkunden

The Code of Civil Procedure is about to celebrate its 150th anniversary. In contrast to the continuous social and economic development since 1877, however, its basic structure has remained largely unchanged. This discrepancy is particularly evident in the rules governing documents. Compared to other forms of strict evidence, documents are accorded a special status through documentary evidence, documentary proceedings, and documentary restitution. Against this background, this paper examines whether the special status of documents is still justified and, if not, in which direction the Code of Civil Procedure could be further developed.