Facts

Parties:
Appellant: [A.]
Respondent: Emmental-Oberaargau Enforcement Office, Emmental Branch

Facts:
On October 13, 2022, the Emmental-Oberaargau Enforcement Office, Emmental Branch, announced the seizure to [A.] in enforcement proceedings No. xxx for October 28, 2022. [A.] filed an appeal with the Bern Canton Superior Court as the supervisory authority in enforcement and bankruptcy matters on October 20, 2022, and requested that the "payment order" of October 13, 2022 be declared null and void or invalid and that the enforcement proceedings be lifted. Furthermore, it was to be established that the enforcement office may no longer take legally valid actions due to organizational deficiencies. The supervisory authority dismissed the appeal with a decision of October 27, 2022. [A.] applied to the Federal Supreme Court with a submission of November 12, 2022, requesting the annulment of the superior court's decision and renewed his claims made in the cantonal proceedings.

Considerations

The lower court considered the appellant's complaint about the missing original signature on the notice of seizure and noted that it could not be determined from the submitted copy whether the notice of seizure bore a handwritten signature or not. The absence of a handwritten signature, however, does not render the notice of seizure invalid. The qualified electronic signature pursuant to the Federal Act of March 18, 2016 on Electronic Signatures (ESigA; SR 943.03) is equivalent to a handwritten signature.

The appellant considers these considerations of the lower court to be "nonsensical". A qualified electronic signature is something entirely different from the reproduction of a signature. The contested notice of seizure, in deviation from Art. 6 of the Federal Supreme Court Ordinance on the Forms and Registers to be Used in Enforcement and Bankruptcy Proceedings and on Accounting of June 5, 1996 (FRAO; SR 281.31), contains only a printed facsimile signature and is thus to be considered an non-binding document. The ordinance article only accepts handwritten or stamped signatures, but not printed versions. Furthermore, the lower court itself is to blame for the uncertainty about the actual quality of the signature, as it waived a consultation.

The lower court did not make any specific findings regarding the manner in which the signature was affixed to the notice of seizure. Even if one were to assume with the appellant that the signature on the notice of seizure was reproduced by printing the scanned signature, the notice of seizure would still have to be considered valid. Pursuant to Art. 6 FRAO, the forms must be signed by the officials or employees of the enforcement or bankruptcy office who are authorized to do so under cantonal law; facsimile stamps may be used. To the extent that the appellant only wants to understand this to mean a physical stamp that is stamped on printed documents, he is not to be followed. Even before the entry into force of the aforementioned ordinance, the Federal Supreme Court has refused to change a practice that has existed for several decades regarding the use of facsimile signatures on enforcement forms. When it comes to official forms that must be used by the enforcement office, it does not matter who signs them and how. There is no need to change the practice merely because of a purely virtual risk of abuse, especially since no such abuse has been proven (judgment B.101/1991 of July 2, 1991 E. 3). These considerations are still valid. It is therefore to be noted that the admission of facsimile stamps in Art. 6 FRAO also refers to digitized signatures, which moreover corresponds to the will of the former Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court (WEYERMANN, The Ordinances of the Federal Supreme Court on the DEBA in their amended version, in: PJA 1996 p. 1371).

The appellant's further arguments miss the point. His view that the head of the office pursuant to Art. 2 para. 1 DEBA must be an actual official has been rightly rejected…