Practicing open data: publishing court decisions in Germany | space for transparency

"In Germany, we have been pushing for the publication of court decisions that include the names of the guilty parties particularly when it comes to naming those involved in foreign bribery. A 1993 study found that only 0.5 per cent of all court decisions are published. Even at the level of federal courts, the publication rate ranges only between 2 per cent (Federal Patent Court) and 44 per cent (Federal Tax Court). While results will have improved since then, Germany is far from publishing all court decisions at all levels. A decision of the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) of 1997 held that publication of court decisions is a constitutionally mandated task of the judiciary and therefore of every court. All decisions, whose publication the general public could have an interest in, have to be published. With this qualification, not all decisions have to be published, but with a rising public interest in court decisions and open data, more and more decisions will. In addition, decisions 'are to be prepared for delivery to the public by anonymization'.  This is apparently because naming and shaming is frowned upon in Germany ..."