The JDBC group is proud to release the latest driver (42.1.3) that fixes 42.1.2 regression:
* fixed NPE in PreparedStatement.executeBatch in case of empty batch (regression since 42.1.2) PR#867
Just in case: up to date pgjdbc versions are available via Maven SNAPSHOTs. That is, you could try snapshot version from time to time and file bugs to prevent regressions.