DECISION
In the administrative law case
Mr. Kai Budler,
Plaintiff and Applicant,
Procedural representative: Attorney Adam, Lange Geismarstraße 55, 37073 Göttingen, – 0544/11 –
against
The State of Lower Saxony, represented by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport, Department 5 – Office for the Protection of the Constitution, represented by the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Büttnerstraße 28, 30165 Hanover,
Defendant and respondent,
Subject of the dispute: Determination of the illegality of the observation and the collection and storage of personal data – Application procedure pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO) –
The 14th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony, acting as a specialized senate pursuant to Section 189 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure, decided on November 20, 2014, by [date]:
The defendant's refusal to submit the files requested in full by the Administrative Court of Hanover – 10th Chamber – by order of June 20, 2014, is unlawful insofar as it relates to pages 398 to 432, 436 to 453, and 458 to 460 of supplementary file F (the defendant's main file/case file under file number 18533 – Budler). Otherwise, the defendant's refusal is lawful.
Reasons
I.
In the main proceedings before the Administrative Court of Hanover – 10 A 5548/11 – which form the basis of these interim proceedings, the plaintiff seeks a declaration that his surveillance by the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution from July 10, 2000 to the present day and the collection and storage of personal data relating to him during this period were unlawful.
By letter dated June 27, 2011, the plaintiff requested information from the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution regarding the data stored there concerning him. In an undated letter received by the plaintiff's legal representative on September 15, 2011, the representative provided general biographical data as well as some of the information stored about the plaintiff and indicated that he also possessed information about the plaintiff's left-wing extremist activities, about which he would not disclose any information for the reasons stated in Section 13 Paragraph 2 of the Lower Saxony Law on the Protection of the Constitution. Thereupon, by letter dated October 10, 2011, the plaintiff requested the deletion of the data stored concerning him, arguing that the prerequisites for its storage were not met.
On October 10, 2011, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit – case number 1 A 192/11 – with the Göttingen Administrative Court, seeking a court order compelling the defendant to provide complete information about the personal data stored concerning him (hereinafter: action for disclosure) and a declaration that his surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution from July 10, 2000, to the present day, including the collection and storage of data concerning him during this period, was unlawful (hereinafter: action for declaratory judgment). On the same day, the plaintiff filed a further lawsuit – case number 1 A 246/11 – with the Göttingen Administrative Court, seeking an order compelling the defendant to delete the data stored about him in files and to block the data contained in files (hereinafter: action for erasure).
In the legal proceedings for disclosure, the defendant, upon request of the Göttingen Administrative Court, submitted only a portion of the administrative files held concerning the plaintiff and declared in a letter dated December 5, 2011, that the submission of the complete files held by him was not permitted pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO) (declaration of confidentiality). Upon the plaintiff's application, the specialized panel, in its decision of March 23, 2012 – 14 PS 1/12 – upheld the legality of this declaration of confidentiality. The plaintiff's appeal against this decision was dismissed by the Federal Administrative Court in its decision of August 21, 2012 – BVerwG 20 F 5.12. Thereupon, the plaintiff withdrew his action for disclosure.
In the legal proceedings for erasure, the Göttingen Administrative Court, in its judgment of November 6, 2013, ordered the defendant to delete certain data disclosed to the plaintiff from files or to block it from records. The Administrative Court otherwise dismissed the action as inadmissible; the claim was deemed insufficiently specific due to the lack of a concrete description of the data that had rightfully not been disclosed to the plaintiff.
The Göttingen Administrative Court severed the declaratory judgment action by order of December 22, 2011, and referred it to the locally competent Hanover Administrative Court – 10 A 5548/11. In a written submission dated December 16, 2013, the defendant, in light of the Göttingen Administrative Court's decision of November 6, 2013, in the action for erasure, acknowledged "that the disclosed data storage has been unlawful since July 10, 2000" (page 152 of the court file). In this respect, the parties unanimously declared the declaratory judgment action settled. On June 20, 2014, the Hanover Administrative Court ordered the taking of evidence "regarding the content of the personal data collected and stored about the plaintiff by inspecting the defendant's complete files containing such data" and requested the defendant to submit "all file components containing the plaintiff's personal data, and in particular those file components that were the subject of the in-camera proceedings before the specialized panel under file number OVG 14 PS 1/12 and subsequently before the Federal Administrative Court under file number BVerwG 20 F 5.12." In response, the defendant submitted only a portion of the requested files in a letter dated June 24, 2014, and otherwise declared that the submission of the complete files held by him was not permitted pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (declaration of injunction). In support of his decision, the defendant stated that, after reviewing the files and exercising his discretion, it had to be assumed that disclosure of the contents of the withheld documents would be detrimental to the welfare of the state of Lower Saxony, as the disclosure of the documents' contents would hinder the future performance of the domestic intelligence agency's duties, including cooperation with other authorities. The protection of domestic intelligence agency information and sources, working methods, and intelligence gathering techniques necessitated keeping the documents in question secret. Furthermore, the defendant provided specific justifications for the withheld documents, explaining the grounds for secrecy in each case, namely the protection of the domestic intelligence agency's operational capacity, its sources of information, and the personal rights and other interests of third parties. In a further written submission dated June 25, 2014, he stated that "personal data concerning the plaintiff that is still required remains stored in files even after the date of the blocking order of December 5, 2011. For the reasons stated in the blocking order, this data cannot be disclosed and is covered by the blocking order of June 24, 2014." (Page 232 of the court file) At the oral hearing before the Hanover Administrative Court on June 26, 2014, the plaintiff requested a ruling that his surveillance by the defendant's Office for the Protection of the Constitution from July 10, 2000, to the present day, and the collection and storage of the undisclosed data concerning him during this period, was unlawful. He further requested, pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure, that the files be submitted to the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony for a decision on the legality of the defendant's refusal to grant him full access to the files.
Upon this application, the Hanover Administrative Court, by order of June 26, 2014, referred the proceedings to the competent specialized panel of the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony for preliminary proceedings pursuant to Sections 99 Paragraph 2 Sentence 4 and 189 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure. It stated that the files requested by the defendant in its order of June 20, 2014, were relevant to the decision. The plaintiff's declaratory action was admissible, even in light of the action for erasure already decided with final and binding effect by the Göttingen Administrative Court, and was not subsidiary to it. The subject matter of both actions was only partially identical. The declaratory judgment sought by the plaintiff regarding the unlawfulness of the collection and storage of personal data was not necessarily a preliminary issue to be resolved in the action for erasure. Furthermore, the Göttingen Administrative Court had deemed the action for erasure inadmissible with respect to the undisclosed data; the plaintiff therefore had no recourse to obtain legal protection through a declaratory action in this respect. The submission of the required files is essential for the subsequent decision regarding the legality of the collection and storage of personal data pursuant to Section 8 Paragraph 1 of the Lower Saxony Constitutional Court Act (NVerfSchG). A renewed review by the specialized panel is also necessary in light of its previous decision of March 23, 2012 – 14 PS 1/12. The defendant has stated that further information and data have since come to light and has submitted a new declaration of confidentiality focused on the subject matter of the declaratory judgment action.
II.
The plaintiff's application for a declaration that the defendant's refusal to fully submit the files required by the Administrative Court of Hanover – 10th Chamber – by decision of June 20, 2014 is unlawful is admissible and (1.) and also well-founded to the extent indicated in the operative part of the judgment (2.).
1. The plaintiff's application for a decision by the specialized panel formed pursuant to Section 189 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO) in independent interim proceedings pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO) is admissible.
According to the jurisprudence of the Federal Administrative Court, an application generally requires a formal statement from the court of first instance that it needs the files, documents, or records withheld by the highest supervisory authority to clarify the facts relevant to the decision. The court of first instance must clearly indicate, by specifying the subject matter of the evidence, that it considers the documents or records to be relevant. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the court of first instance may not merely state the subject matter of the evidence and the parts of the file deemed relevant to the decision (evidence), but must address the relevance of the evidence in the specific case in the grounds for its decision – be it with regard to the admissibility of the legal remedy sought, or by explaining the substantive legal requirements of the asserted claim as well as the statutory grounds for rejection (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of November 2, 2010 – BVerwG 20 F 2.10 –, NVwZ 2011, 233 et seq.).
The Administrative Court of Hanover has issued a formal statement on the legal relevance of the file contents to the decision in this case that meets these requirements. In its decisions of June 20 and 26, 2014, it sufficiently clearly defined the subject matter of the evidence and the files (evidence) deemed relevant to the decision. It also provided a comprehensible justification for the relevance of the specified files to the decision in relation to the specific case.
The specialized panel is bound by this comprehensible justification of the legal relevance of the file's contents to the decision in the main proceedings (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of July 2, 2009 – BVerwG 20 F 4.09 –, Buchholz 310 § 99 VwGO No. 54). A different assessment by the specialized panel is only possible if the legal opinion of the court of first instance is manifestly erroneous or if the court of first instance fails to fulfill its obligation to exhaust all means available to it under the principle of official investigation to clarify the facts in order to decide on the necessity of submitting the file (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of March 15, 2013 – BVerwG 20 F 8.12 –, juris para. 11 with further references).
Such an exceptional case does not exist here.
In particular, the legal opinion of the Hanover Administrative Court regarding the lack of subsidiarity of the declaratory judgment action compared to the action for deletion already decided by the Göttingen Administrative Court in its judgment of November 6, 2013 – 1 A 246/11 – is not manifestly erroneous. The subsidiarity stipulated in Section 43 Paragraph 2 Sentence 1 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO) does not preclude the admissibility of a declaratory judgment action if there is no risk of circumventing the provisions on time limits and preliminary proceedings applicable to actions for annulment and actions for performance, and if the declaratory judgment action offers more effective legal protection. The latter can be the case, in particular, if a disputed issue between the parties, which in a potential declaratory or performance action would at most be a preliminary question or of subordinate importance alongside other elements of the claim to be asserted, can be resolved appropriately and in a manner that fully takes into account the parties' interest in legal protection by means of a declaratory judgment (see Federal Administrative Court, Judgment of April 29, 1997 – BVerwG 1 C 2.95 –, Buchholz 310 § 43 VwGO No. 127, regarding the lack of subsidiarity of an action for a declaration of the unlawfulness of the use of undercover investigators compared to an action for information and deletion of the data obtained during the use of undercover investigators, with numerous further references to the case law of the Federal Administrative Court). According to the comprehensible reasoning of the Hanover Administrative Court in its decision of June 26, 2014, these requirements are met here.
Finally, the admissibility of the application pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 2 Sentence 1 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO) is not precluded by the legal force of the previous decisions of the Federal Administrative Court of August 21, 2012 – BVerwG 20 F 5.12 – and of the Senate of March 23, 2012 – 14 PS 1/12.
Decisions establishing the legality of an official refusal to produce documents or files, to transmit electronic documents, or to provide information in proceedings under Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO) are indeed capable of becoming res judicata (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of January 26, 1968 – BVerwG VII B 75.67 –, BVerwGE 29, 72, 73; Schoch/Schneider/Bier, VwGO, Section 121 (as of January 2012) marginal note 15, and Section 99 (as of September 2007) marginal note 48). In the further proceedings on the merits, they are to be treated as a legally binding interlocutory judgment (see Federal Constitutional Court, Decision of October 27, 1999 – 1 BvR 385/90 –, BVerfGE 101, 106, 120; Federal Administrative Court, Decision of November 24, 2003 – BVerwG 20 F 13.03 –, BVerwGE 119, 229, 231). However, their res judicata effect extends only as far as the subject matter of the dispute has been decided (see generally on the concept of the subject matter of the dispute: Federal Administrative Court, Judgment of January 30, 2013 – BVerwG 8 C 2.12 –, Buchholz 316 § 49a VwVfG No. 12 with further references to the case law of the Federal Administrative Court). The subject matter of the interlocutory proceedings pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO) is the refusal by the competent supreme supervisory authority to submit the documents or files requested by the court, to transmit electronic documents, or to provide information.
According to these principles, the subject matter of these proceedings and the preceding proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court – BVerwG 20 F 5.12 – and the Senate – 14 PS 1/12 – are not identical. The subject matter of the latter proceedings was the declaration of confidentiality dated December 5, 2011, which the defendant had submitted to the Göttingen Administrative Court in the action for information and declaratory judgment in response to the request for files in the order issued by the presiding judge of the First Chamber of the Göttingen Administrative Court on October 10, 2011. The subject of the current interim proceedings, however, is the declaration of blocking dated June 24, 2014, which the defendant submitted to the Hanover Administrative Court in response to the request for files in the decision of the 10th Chamber of the Hanover Administrative Court dated June 20, 2014. It is irrelevant that the declarations of blocking are based in part on the same files and that the subject matter of the main proceedings was at least temporally and partially identical.
2. However, the plaintiff's application is only partially successful.
The defendant's declaration of confidentiality dated June 24, 2014, and the associated refusal to submit the files requested by the Hanover Administrative Court – 10th Chamber – in its order of June 20, 2014, in full, is unlawful insofar as it relates to pages 398 to 432, 436 to 453, and 458 to 460 of supplementary file F (the defendant's main file/case file under file number 18533 – Budler). Otherwise, the declaration of confidentiality and the defendant's associated refusal are lawful.
Pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO), public authorities are obligated to submit documents or files and provide information to the court. If the disclosure of the contents of these documents, files or information would be detrimental to the welfare of the Federal Republic of Germany or a German state, or if the proceedings must be kept secret by law or by their very nature, the competent supreme supervisory authority may refuse to submit the documents or files or to provide the information (§ 99 para. 1 sentence 2 VwGO).
If the disclosure of the contents of withheld documents would be detrimental to the welfare of the state or the federal government concerned, their confidentiality is a legitimate concern of the common good (cf. Federal Constitutional Court, Decision of 27 October 1999 – 1 BvR 385/90 –, BVerfGE 101, 106, 127 et seq.; Federal Administrative Court, Decision of 7 November 2002 – BVerwG 2 AV 2.02 –, NVwZ 2003, 347, 348), which may justify a refusal to submit the documents pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure. A disadvantage in this sense exists, among other things, if and insofar as the disclosure of the file contents would impede the future performance of the tasks of the security authorities, including their cooperation with other authorities, or would endanger the life, health, or freedom of persons (cf. Federal Administrative Court, decision of 2 July 2009, loc. cit.; decision of 5 February 2009 – BVerwG 20 F 24.08 –, juris para. 4).
The defendant invoked such grounds for confidentiality in this case. He provided compelling and comprehensible explanations, specific to the individual case, regarding the significance of the withheld information and the necessity of source protection in the confidentiality declaration. He argued that disclosure of the contents of the unsubmitted file sections would be detrimental to the welfare of the State of Lower Saxony, as the disclosure of the file contents would hinder the future performance of the tasks of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, including cooperation with other authorities. The protection of information and sources used by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as well as its working methods and intelligence-gathering techniques, necessitates keeping the documents in question secret. The defendant specifically linked these grounds for confidentiality to the respective pages of the paginated files, citing page numbers (see the cover sheets to supplementary files E to G in the preliminary proceedings 14 PS 2/14).
The Senate examined the fully legible files submitted by the defendant (supplementary files E to G in the interim proceedings 14 PS 2/14) to determine whether the grounds for confidentiality asserted in the declarations of confidentiality actually existed.
With regard to the documents submitted as pages 398 to 432, 436 to 453, and 458 to 460 of Appendix F (the defendant's main file/case file under file number 18533 – Budler), the Senate was not convinced that there was objectively a ground for confidentiality asserted by the defendant within the meaning of Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure. Based on the confidentiality declaration of June 24, 2014, and the documents themselves, the Senate could not determine that disclosure of their contents would hinder the future performance of the domestic intelligence agencies' duties, including their cooperation with other authorities, allow inferences to be drawn about their working methods and intelligence gathering techniques, or endanger sources of information.
Pages 398 to 400, 436 to 438, and 458 to 460 of Appendix F (the defendant's main file/case file under reference number 18533 – Budler) contain printouts from websites, and pages 401 to 432, 439 to 452, and 453 of Appendix F (the defendant's main file/case file under reference number 18533 – Budler) contain printed materials that either completely lack any connection to personal data or where such a connection can be obscured by partial redaction. The documents alone do not reveal their source of information, how the defendant obtained them, or when they were added to the defendant's case file. Even if these documents were not publicly accessible, they were certainly not addressed to a specific individual but were accessible to a wider circle of people from the outset. This group of people with access to the aforementioned documents has likely grown considerably over time. Therefore, drawing conclusions about a definable group or even one of several potential sources of information no longer seems possible, at least not today. However, neither the document itself nor its nature, such as its compilation or the time of its acquisition (cf. on this aspect: Federal Administrative Court, Decision of 5 April 2012 – BVerwG 20 F 1.12 –, juris para. 5; Decision of 7 January 2010 – BVerwG 20 F 5.09 –, NVwZ 2010, 706, 707), permits even plausible conclusions as to which definable group of information sources or even which specific information source it originates from (cf. on this aspect: Federal Administrative Court; Decision of 21 August 2012 – BVerwG 20 F 5.12 –, juris para. 10; Decision of 8 March 2010 – BVerwG 20 F 11.09 –, NJW). 2010, 2295, 2297), whether it was even obtained through covert sources of information (cf. on this aspect: BVerwG, Decision of 16.12.2010 – BVerwG 20 F 15.10 -, NVwZ-RR 2011, 261, 262) or by what means it came to the defendant's case files (cf. on this aspect: BVerwG, Decision of 5.4.2012, ibid.), secrecy for the purpose of source protection is not justified.
With regard to the remaining parts of the file, the Senate, in its review, as already in the previous proceedings 14 PS 1/12, was satisfied that the grounds for confidentiality asserted by the defendant in the declaration of confidentiality do indeed exist.
The disclosure of documents contained in supplementary files E to G in the interim proceedings 14 PS 2/14 is likely to impede the future performance of the security authorities' duties. This applies first and foremost to documents that reflect the state of knowledge of the domestic intelligence agency and its methods of information gathering. The same applies, however, to documents (or parts thereof) such as case files, file numbers, organizational codes and working titles, orders and references to specific officers, file notes, working instructions, marginal notes and cross-references, as well as highlighting and underlining. Because these documents, especially when considered in a more comprehensive overview, are likely to hinder the future performance of the security authorities' duties, including their cooperation with other authorities, and to allow inferences to be drawn about their working methods and intelligence gathering techniques. They also permit inferences about the security authorities' secret assessments and decision-making processes, even on substantive issues (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of August 1, 2007 – BVerwG 20 F 10.06 –, juris para. 8; Decision of November 7, 2002, ibid., p. 347). And this ultimately also applies to documents (or parts thereof) that can be traced back to natural persons. In this respect, there is a need for confidentiality for reasons of the personal safety of these individuals or to protect their professionally required anonymity (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of August 1, 2007, loc. cit., para. 9; Decision of May 4, 2006 – BVerwG 20 F 2.05 –, juris para. 4).
Finally, the supplementary files F and G in the interim proceedings 14 PS 2/14, containing source reports, and the supplementary file E in the interim proceedings 14 PS 2/14, containing a non-anonymized summary of these source reports, contain documents whose disclosure could endanger the health of individuals. These documents reveal details of meetings, times, and participants, which would allow the parties involved to narrow down or even specify the sources of information operating on behalf of the defendant and thus create a risk of physical assault. Furthermore, a breach of a promised permanent confidentiality towards informants would generally be likely to impair the effective performance of the defendant's duties as the Lower Saxony domestic intelligence agency by making future recruitment of informants more difficult (cf. Federal Administrative Court, decision of 10 January 2012 – BVerwG 20 F 1.11 –, juris para. 26 with further references).
The additional document sections contained in the withheld files, for which there is no need for confidentiality, have already been submitted to the Hanover Administrative Court as
– Appendix A (disclosed parts of Appendixes F and G (main files/case files of the defendant under file number 18533 – Budler)),
– Appendix B (disclosed parts of Appendix E (Appendix/Request for Information from the Defendant under file number 18533 – Budler)),
– Appendix C (Exhibits 1 to 6 to the defendant's written submission of 25 June 2014) and
– Appendix D (Exhibit B 2 to the defendant's written submission of 24 June 2014)
were submitted in the main proceedings – 10 A 5548/11. Therefore, the defendant has not refused to submit them to the Administrative Court, the legality or illegality of which could be determined in these interlocutory proceedings.
Further explanation is unnecessary here because, according to Section 99 Paragraph 2 Sentence 10 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO), the grounds for the decision may not reveal the nature and content of the confidential files.
The decision to refuse to produce files when confidentiality is required generally necessitates the exercise of discretion pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the German Code of Administrative Procedure (VwGO). This discretionary power allows the highest supervisory authority to prioritize the public interest and the individual interests of the parties to the proceedings in establishing the truth within the administrative process, which is governed by the principle of official investigation, over the interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the documents. Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the VwGO regulates the provision of information and the production of files in the relationship between the authority handling confidential matters and the administrative court, which, in pending proceedings, relies on access to the files for a proper decision. In this relationship, the law places the provision of information and the production of files at the discretion of the authority, thus allowing it the choice of whether to withhold the files or information due to their need for confidentiality or to refrain from doing so for the sake of effective legal protection. The highest supervisory authority must demonstrate in its confidentiality order, in a comprehensible manner, that it has weighed the consequences of the refusal against the outcome of the proceedings, based on this standard (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of January 31, 2011 – BVerwG 20 F 18.10 –, juris para. 9 with further references).
The defendant's confidentiality order of June 24, 2014, meets the aforementioned requirements insofar as an objective need for confidentiality has been affirmed for the disclosed parts of the file. The defendant, clearly distinguishing this from the discretionary decision to be made under the statutory provision of Section 13 Paragraph 2 of the Lower Saxony Constitutional Protection Act (NVerfSchG) regarding the refusal to provide information (cf. on this requirement: Federal Administrative Court, Decision of June 18, 2008 – BVerwG 20 F 44.07 –, Buchholz 310 § 99 VwGO No. 49), recognized the discretion granted to him under Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO) and weighed the state's interest in confidentiality against the opposing private and public interests in effective legal protection and comprehensive clarification of the facts. In doing so, he also considered the plaintiff's journalistic activity and convincingly demonstrated that this was not the reason for the data collection and storage and therefore could not be given greater weight in the balancing of interests, meaning that the public interest in confidentiality could not prevail. These explanations, while brief in relation to the specific circumstances of the present case, still meet the requirements for the exercise of discretion pursuant to Section 99 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 of the German Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO). No errors in the exercise of discretion are apparent.
A separate decision on costs is not required in proceedings under Section 99 Paragraph 2 of the Administrative Court Procedure Act (VwGO). This is because, in relation to the main proceedings, it is a dependent interlocutory dispute for which the Court Costs Act does not provide for court fees and no special claims for legal fees arise (see Federal Administrative Court, Decision of December 16, 2010, loc. cit., p. 263). Therefore, a value in dispute or subject matter does not need to be determined either.
The following is information on legal remedies.
