It is increasingly more common for filing at court to be made electronically, either using the data box or electronic signature. Due to the fact that electronic signatures are based on certificates, which have limited validity and their authenticity needs to be verified, a number of problems arise with electronic signing.

The Constitutional Court dealt with one of them in a proceeding under file no. II. ÚS 671/21. In this case, the plaintiff submitted a proposal for the issuing of an electronic payment order, to which he added an electronic signature. He then received an automatic confirmation that his filing has been delivered, verified and passed on for further processing. A file number had also been assigned to the filing.

In reality, though, the district court was not able to verify the electronic signature automatically and it was necessary to verify it manually. Manual verification revealed, though, that the signature was not valid because the document had been altered or damaged after the signature was attached. After nearly 3 weeks, the district court informed the plaintiff that his filing will not be taken into consideration.

The Constitutional Court defended the plaintiff, stating that the plaintiff could legitimately expect that his filing had been accepted, because was also informed to that effect. It is the duty of public institutions to ensure that senders are duly informed about whether or not an electronic signature has been verified.

If you submit a filing to court electronically, we recommend always thoroughly checking if it has been duly accepted and processed. Nevertheless, if a filing is not to be taken into consideration only due to a technical mistake, the court or another respective authority should inform you about this fact without delay.