Employers may order an official medical examination even after years of delay. This has now been decided by the Münster Higher Administrative Court (OVG) (Ref.: 6 B 724/25 dated 12/08/2025).

In the summary proceedings, a civil servant teacher who had been unfit for work due to illness since 2009 objected to her employer's order to undergo an official medical examination. She criticised the fact that the order had only been issued after such a long period of time and also objected to the neurological-psychiatric examination that was demanded of her.

The court did not follow her: The employer's authority to order an official medical examination due to sickness-related absences of the civil servant still exists even after the absences specified in the Civil Servant Status Act (Section 26 (1) sentence 2) have been significantly exceeded and the employer has failed to act for years. It is not simply cancelled by the passage of time. The OVG also declared the order for a neurological-psychiatric examination to be admissible, as the civil servant had submitted certificates issued by a centre for neurology and psychiatry in previous years. There were therefore concrete indications of a mental illness.