The Palatine Higher Regional Court in Zweibrücken is, alongside the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, one of two Higher Regional Courts in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate.HistoryThe Palatine Higher Regional Court is one of the oldest of its kind in Germany. It was established in 1816 when King Maximilian I of Bavaria – also the last Duke of Zweibrücken in personal union – ordered the relocation of the Bavarian court of appeal, which had been established in Kaiserslautern in July 1815.The origins of the Palatine Court of Appeal are closely linked to the administrative reorganisation of the area west of the river Rhine following the fall of Napoleon. In 1815, after the end of French rulership, the royal Austrian and Bavarian regional administration had established a court of appeal in Kaiserslautern for this area of Germany. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, parts of the western shore of the Rhine – corresponding to today’s Palatinate and the Saar-Pfalz district of the state of Saarland – had been taken over by Bavaria. In 1816 the King of Bavaria, Maximilian I – also the last Duke of Zweibrücken, from 1795 to 1825 – ordered the relocation of the royal court of appeal from Kaiserslautern to Zweibrücken, to commence operations from 1 August onwards. The opening ceremony was held on 16 October 1816. The city to which the Bavarian king had felt connected since childhood was now the seat of the highest-ranking court in the Palatinate – probably to act as a balance to Speyer, where the government of the Rhineland was based.