Federal Constitutional Court: Coalition is looking for a solution in the dispute over judge election

In the coalition dispute over to fill up with the Federal Constitutional Court, the Union advertises for patience. It is open whether CDU/CSU will listen to the SPD, who is controversial in her faction, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf. The SPD brought this into play after the Bundestag’s broken judge election at an internal circuit conference. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) emphasized despite the judge election debacle that the cooperation in the coalition was good.

“We even work really well with the Social Democrats in this coalition,” said Merz at the shooting festival in his Sauerland home Arnsberg-Niedereimer. “This also shows that the political center in our country is able to work together, to rule and ensure that our democracy remains stable in the middle.”

The last week of the Bundestag ended in a dispute on Friday before the summer break. The elections of Brosius-Gersdorf and two other new judges for Karlsruhe were discontinued at short notice because the pressure against the Potsdam constitutional lawyer in the Union had become too great and the fraction management could no longer guarantee the support agreed with the coalition partner. SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch then found in an outraged personal explanation: “We stick to our candidates. I expect the majority.”

Further Union resistance against SPD candidate

But there is still resistance in the Union. “If I were able to Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, I would ask myself whether I maintained my candidacy,” said CDU MP Tilman Kuban to the “Tagesspiegel” (Monday). “It is also the responsibility to avert further damage from the Federal Constitutional Court.” Cuban attested the SPD “inconsistency and uncompromising”. Miersch had previously spoken of the “conscious disassembly” of the court and democratic institutions with a view to the Union.

Cuban was skeptical that his faction can still be changed: “Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf has expressed very exposed and represented positions in comments that are not acceptable for many in the Union.” Kuban accused his own leadership of having approved the SPD candidate at all. The Union had nominated her in the judge’s election committee, the Union faction management had spoken out for her choice.

Union wants to take the time

The Union faction management pleads for nothing to rush. The parliamentary manager Steffen Bilger (CDU) told the German Press Agency: “Now everyone should come down a little and then we will discuss the further procedure with the SPD in peace.” CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann told the dpa that the coalition was responsible for agreeing to a joint candidate package. “This includes taking time now and not getting lost.”

At the digital SPD meeting on Friday evening, Miersch made it clear that one had to speak quickly to face, as it was said in parliamentary group circles.

The Federal Labor judge Günter Spinner and the SPD was also nominated for the Bundestag vote on Friday by the Union and the Munich Jura Professor Ann-Katrin Kaufhold.

Doubts about the obligation to vaccinate and abortions

Reservations against the 54-year-old Brosius-Gersdorf are justified from a conservative side, among other things, that it is said to have written about abortion: “There are good reasons why the deception of the deception only applies from birth.” At Corona, she was also for an obligation to vaccinate and in the dispute over the headscarf for legal trainees against the neutrality requirement of the constitutional court.

“Go home with the group leader”

The processes have also increased the pressure on Union faction leader Jens Spahn (CDU) after he has been defensive in his time as a health minister due to massive-ordered corona protection masks. The former CDU Prime Minister of the Saarland and constitutional judge Peter Müller told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”: “that a judge’s election (…) does not come about after the Bundestag’s election committee has already made a suggestion to the plenary-this has never been a blatant management failure of the Union.” This is “primarily with the parliamentary group leader”.

Spahn is coordinated by critics that the planned judge election was only discontinued after an Austrian plagiarism examiner published parallels between Brosius-Gersdorf’s doctoral thesis and the habilitation thesis of her husband the day before. Brosius-Gersdorf’s former University of Hamburg is not enough to take a review. The CDU member of the Bundestag Thomas Bareiß told the “Tagesspiegel”: In order to protect the candidate as a person, he would have liked his party and fraction management in the question of a plagiarism allegation “a little more reluctance”. Brosius-Gersdorf has not yet commented.

Federal Constitutional Court election committee