Justice.Rights.Responsibility.
Former judge and prosecutor; Germany’s Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection since 6 May 2025 — responsible for the legal framework of the state, the procedures of its courts and the rights of consumers.
- Born
- 1968, Frankfurt
- Judge from
- 1996
- Minister since
- May 2025
A strong rule of law is not abstract.
It is the quiet infrastructure behind ordinary life — usually invisible, and noticed mostly when it fails.
On 8 July 2026, answering questions in the Bundestag, Hubig opened by describing Germany as a state under the rule of law, founded on the Basic Law and on fundamental rights — a foundation, she argued, that has to be actively protected and strengthened rather than taken for granted.
The rule of law, explainedJustice policy can sound remote: statutes, procedural codes, budget lines for court staff. Yet almost every part of daily life rests on the assumption that rights can be enforced, that agreements will be honoured and that a neutral judge is available when they are not. The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection drafts much of the federal law that makes those assumptions true — civil and criminal law, the rules of court procedure, company and tenancy law, and the consumer law that governs what people buy and sign.
The areas below are where that work becomes tangible. Each is a field in which the ministry Hubig leads is currently changing, or debating, the law.
Security
Criminal law defines what the state may punish and, just as importantly, the limits of its power to investigate. Safety and civil liberty are weighed against each other in every new investigative tool.
Rights
Fundamental rights matter only if they can be enforced. Effective judicial protection — the guarantee of access to an independent court — is what turns a constitutional promise into a practical one.
Contracts
Employment, tenancy, insurance and purchases are all contracts. Civil law sets the rules for fair terms, for withdrawal and for what happens when something goes wrong.
Families
Parentage, custody, contact arrangements and maintenance are governed by family law — an area where reform proposals in 2026 seek to give more weight to protection from violence and to children’s voices.
Consumers
From the new withdrawal button for online contracts to rules on green claims and repair, consumer law balances informed choice with protection against manipulation.
Digital life
Deepfakes, online fraud, hate speech and cyberstalking pose new questions for both criminal law and platform responsibility — and for privacy.
Protection from violence
Protection orders mean little if they cannot be monitored. Germany adopted electronic monitoring for high-risk domestic-violence cases in 2026.
Access to effective courts
Long proceedings can amount to denied justice. Staffing, digital files and simpler procedures determine whether a claim is heard in months or years.
Democratic institutions
Independent courts, lay judges loyal to the constitution and resilient procedures for electing judges are part of how a democracy protects itself.
The path
to justice
- 1988Abitur
Secondary-school leaving examination in Munich.
- 1989–93Law studies
Law at the University of Regensburg.
- 1993First State Exam
The university stage of German legal training completed.
- 1995Second State Exam
Qualification for judicial office after the practical traineeship.
- 1996–2000Judge / Prosecutor
Judge for criminal and civil matters at Ingolstadt; prosecutor there from 1998.
- 2000–08Federal Ministry of Justice
Adviser, deputy head of the minister’s office, then head of cabinet and parliamentary affairs.
- 2008–14Rhineland-Palatinate
State Chancellery, then head of the criminal-law department in the state justice ministry.
- 2014–16State Secretary
Administrative head of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.
- 2016–25Minister of Education
Rhineland-Palatinate; President of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers in 2020.
- 2025–Federal Minister
Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection since 6 May 2025.
Each column rises with the responsibility of the post. Scroll horizontally, or see the full timeline and the legal-career chronology.
Six fields of policy
Rule of law
Institutions, constitutional order and public trust — the frame within which every other policy operates.
Justice
Efficient, accessible and modern courts: 2,000 new posts and a digital justice cloud under the 2026 Pact.
Consumer protection
Protection in increasingly digital markets.
Digital justice
Technology, evidence, online crime and modern investigation.
Protection from violence
Legal mechanisms to protect victims and prevent further violence.
Reform
Modernising legal procedures: paper files electronic files, €5,000 €10,000 local-court threshold.
The work of justice today
Six dossiers summarise the ministry’s main projects. Each asks the same questions: what is the issue, why it matters, what the reform is meant to solve, what changes in practice, which civil-liberties questions it raises and what critics say. Status labels reflect parliamentary records as of 8 October 2026.
01The Pact for the Rule of Law
The Pact for the Rule of Law
German courts and prosecution services report heavy caseloads and long proceedings. Courts are run by the Länder, so the federal government can legislate procedure but does not employ most judges.
Slow justice weakens trust. Hubig has presented the Pact as a response to growing scepticism about democracy and the rule of law.
€450 million in federal funding to 2029: €240 million to start-finance around 2,000 new posts, mainly judges and prosecutors, and €210 million for a justice cloud, a justice portal and the civil online procedure. A third pillar commits to modernising court procedure.
More staff should mean shorter waiting times, and shared digital infrastructure should replace parallel systems built by sixteen Länder.
Faster procedure must not reduce the right to be heard. Digital infrastructure raises questions of data security and of how judicial independence is protected in shared IT.
Several Länder, notably Hesse, objected that federal start-up money leaves them paying salaries for decades. The Left called the funding inadequate in the September 2026 budget debate.
02Faster procedures
Faster procedures
Small civil claims are often not worth the cost of litigation, and long criminal trials strain courts and participants alike.
If enforcing a €900 claim costs more than the claim, the right exists only on paper. In criminal cases, delay affects defendants, victims and witnesses.
Since 1 January 2026, local courts (Amtsgerichte) hear civil claims up to €10,000 instead of €5,000. Since 1 April 2026, a pilot online procedure for money claims runs at 18 local courts in 10 Länder. An expert commission on criminal procedure has worked since September 2025.
More cases are heard closer to home and without compulsory legal representation; digital filing becomes possible for simple claims.
Acceleration of criminal trials must leave defence rights intact; online procedures must remain accessible to people without digital skills.
Judges’ and lawyers’ associations argue that procedural reform cannot compensate for staff shortages, and criticised the postponement option for electronic files to 2027.
03Consumers online
Consumers online
Online, contracts are concluded in one click while cancelling can be hidden behind menus, forms and deliberately confusing design.
A right of withdrawal that consumers cannot find is a weak right. Vague environmental claims distort competition between honest and dishonest firms.
A mandatory, clearly labelled withdrawal function for online consumer contracts (new § 356a of the Civil Code), extended to financial services, with bans on manipulative design for online financial services. Separately, generic green claims and uncertified sustainability labels are now prohibited.
Consumers can withdraw from an online contract through a dedicated button; businesses must redesign interfaces and substantiate environmental claims.
Consumer rules regulate businesses, not individuals, but they shape the information people rely on to make free choices.
The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv) welcomed the withdrawal law as significant progress, and wants a broader EU ban on manipulative design. Business groups point to compliance costs.
04Digital investigations & IP addresses
Digital investigations & IP addresses
In many online offences, the IP address is the only trace that could link an act to a connection. Without storage, that trace often disappears before investigators can request it.
Hubig argues that perpetrators of online child sexual abuse, fraud and hate crime too often escape identification.
Internet access providers would store IP-address assignments for three months. Access requires suspicion of a specific crime; content, browsing history and location data are excluded. A judicially ordered “preservation order” could freeze other traffic data.
Investigators could identify the subscriber behind an IP address for three months after the act, subject to legal conditions.
Storage would affect every internet user without suspicion. The Court of Justice of the EU (2022) permits only narrowly limited IP retention; press-freedom concerns were raised at the hearing.
The Greens, the Chaos Computer Club and the Federal Bar question necessity and proportionality; telecom providers argue long sessions extend the practical retention period. The judges’ association and the BKA support the proposal.
05Protection against domestic violence
Protection against domestic violence
Protection orders under the Protection Against Violence Act forbid contact, but breaches are often discovered only after the fact.
Government figures cite more than 250,000 domestic-violence cases a year and 328 femicides in 2024.
Family courts may order electronic monitoring in high-risk cases, following the Spanish model, with warning zones and automatic police alerts, and may order perpetrators to attend anti-violence training.
If a monitored person approaches a protected zone, an alarm is triggered immediately. Breaches of protection orders carry up to three years’ imprisonment.
Monitoring is a serious intrusion ordered without a criminal conviction; it is therefore limited to high-risk cases and ordered by a court.
Women’s-shelter networks say monitoring cannot replace binding risk management and secure funding for shelters. Hubig herself has called it “no miracle cure”.
06Repair & product liability
Repair & product liability
Many products are cheaper to replace than to repair, and liability law from 1989 was written for physical goods, not software updates or AI systems.
Repairability affects household budgets and resource use; unclear liability leaves people harmed by defective digital products without a remedy.
Implementing EU directives: a manufacturer repair obligation, a 12-month extension of the warranty period when consumers choose repair, and a modernised product-liability law that covers software and AI.
Consumers gain a stronger claim to repair; people harmed by defective software gain a clearer route to compensation.
Disclosure obligations on manufacturers must balance access to evidence with the protection of trade secrets.
The Bundesrat warned of burdens on manufacturers and sought protection for repair businesses; in the Bundestag, the AfD and the Left voted against the repair law.