LIECHTENSTEIN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Michael Nueber and Philipp Konzett, Nueber Konzett
the Administrative Court, will end their period of office. This means that all part-time judicial positions at the Supreme Court will need to be reappointed, effective
announced to be considered in an upcoming proposal for an optimised trust law. In addition to ensuring effective and continuous moni- toring of the trustees’ administrative activities in trusts and eliminating potential control deficits, this propos- al would have been the chance to allow for binding instructions to be obtained from the regional court. Although the law provides for such binding instruc- tions already, it is more or less dead law. We hope that this will be taken into consideration in future reforms. Outlook and Missed Opportunities The reform was intended to strengthen the quality of jurisdiction, secure the independence of the courts and achieve a higher level of professionalism through the introduction of two full-time judge positions at the Supreme Court. The existing three-tier system will be maintained, with the Supreme Court continuing to have a central role in the development and interpreta- tion of Liechtenstein’s legal framework. The establish- ment of judicial “pools” at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court should contribute to improving stand- ards, as this will allow more specialised judges to be appointed and specialised senates to be formed. This is a good compromise. In the sector of digitalisation, the 2026 judicial reform did not implement any new measures for the digital modernisation of the legal system. Proposals for the introduction of digital files, electronic communication with the courts and the digital submission of docu- ments were not taken into account at all. The gov- ernment believed that digitisation can only speed up mass proceedings, such as proceedings for enforce- ment or monetary claims. However, in most proceed- ings, the time savings are limited to the electronic sub- mission of court documents instead of postal delivery, while the time-consuming hearing of evidence in the first instance is not streamlined. In our opinion, this is clearly a missed opportunity that would have allowed for a more efficient handling of the proceedings. The judicial reform in Liechtenstein, which will come into effect as of 1 January 2026, therefore features several key changes. Heavy (and rightful) criticism by the Liechtenstein Bar Association prevented the aboli- tion of the Supreme Court, which we consider impor-
from 1 January 2026. Shared pool of judges
In order to achieve the possibility to specialise and to maintain a certain degree of flexibility so that the court can respond appropriately and promptly to changing workloads in the individual areas of law, a “pool of judges” will be created at both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. Full-time and part-time judges will be assigned to the individual panels by means of a distribution of cases. This will also allow more spe- cialised panels to be created in the future, for example specialised panels for civil law, criminal law, financial market law, asylum law, tax law, social security law and administrative criminal law. This alternative proposal is intended to implement the more extensive professionalisation of the legal sys- tem and increase flexibility while retaining three lev- els of ordinary jurisdiction and minimising the impact on human resources in accordance with the original proposal. This means that at least one full-time judge is required in each senate. At the same time, this full- time judge also acts as the senate chair. The formation of the senate is based on the idea of ensuring that the third instance is at least partially professionalised in a way that conserves human resources of the court. There will be no structural changes to the Court of Appeal. There will be five full-time judges. To improve quality, part-time judges who are experts in specific matters will also be appointed to the Court of Appeal. As with the Supreme Court, these judges will be assigned to individual senates from a flexible pool. However, in order to improve quality, specialist experts are also to be appointed as part-time judges at the Court of Appeal in future. No creation of a specialist senate for trust law at the first instance The government of Liechtenstein had proposed other significant changes to the legal system, which were generally well received. Eventually, the idea of intro- ducing specialised trust senates was postponed and
634 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook