Headnotes
1. The publication of court rulings is a public task. It is a task of the judicial power derived directly from the constitution and therefore of every court. All rulings in the publication of which the public is or may be interested must be published. Rulings worthy of publication must be prepared for disclosure to the public by means of anonymisation or neutralisation.
2. Afterwards, the rulings do not need to be published by the courts themselves but their publication may also be left to the private initiative of interested persons including the judges involved in the ruling by means of an organisational act.
3. When disclosing court rulings for purposes of publication, the courts are subject to a neutrality obligation. This corresponds with a right of the publishers of specialist journals as well as other publication media to equal treatment in journalistic competition.
4. Court rulings must be sent to permanent subscribers simultaneously, as far as possible. In case of private third parties, including the judges in their private function, disclosing the rulings must not be organised in a way that leads to certain publishing houses having a competitive advantage.
5. When disclosing the rulings, no distinction must be made based on the academic standard of the press media to which the rulings are to be supplied.