In Germany, there exist "ordinary courts" (for civil, commercial,
criminal and family matters, and some others), and courts of
specialized jurisdiction on administrative claims, on social security
insurance claims, on labour disputes and on tax disputes, to name
the most important. The highest courts are Federal Courts, whereas
the other courts are in the competency of the Laender.
For the ordinary
courts, a unified database exists that allows to search for the local
jurisdiction based on the ZIP-Code ("PLZ") of the place on which the
jurisdiction is based (such as residence of the defendant, or place of
contract or accident, depending on the matter). For the other courts and more infomation, no
unified database is available yet, so one has to follow the other links
provided below.
One of the places to access the database of ordinary courts is here: http://www.prozessgerichte.de/.