Practical Research Group Stuttgart
of the Institute for legal fact-finding at the University of Constance  


·  Court of the place of work
Efficency of execution proceedings
The declaration in lieu of an oath
1. August 1999

Wolf-Dieter Treuer, Presiding Judge at the OLG
Brigitte Legler, Judge at the OLG
Dietrich Ditten, Judge at the OLG
Dr. Helmut Hoffmann, Judge at the OLG

Die complete text of this interim report ist available as eidvers.pdf .


The inquiry was based on the following hypotheses:

a) The costs of the discovery proceedings are higher than the returns.

b) The pressure having to declare a declaration in lieu of an oath seldom leads to payment of the debtor.

c) The declaration in lieu of an oath only very rarely produces seizable assets.

d) The repeated declaration in lieu of an oath (§ 903 ZPO) due to changed legal relationships (especially between an employee and his employer) is rare and not often successful (usually of only little success).

e) Titles reached by consensus have a better realization chance than titles brought about by court judgements.

f) Titles of various types come to execution and therefore to discovery proceedings too differently often and not in the same percentage as they should correspond to their part of the total number.

The report describes the conception and the results of the inquiry in particular.



08/2002