With all the hype going on about the US Supreme Court....I figured it was time to lay out the German mechanism....their Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht).
The German rules set mandatory retirement for seats on the court at age 68 (period). No discussions, no waivers.
Once appointed, you serve for twelve years. At the conclusion....you leave.
Method of electing them? Your name is put up and the two levels of government (the Bundestag and the Bundesrat) vote you in.
Total number of seats? Sixteen (set by the Constitution). Yes, it actually says the number that can exist.
Location? Karlsruhr. It's been there since the end of the war. No discussions by the judges on moving to Berlin.
Judges identified to their parties? Yes. Current number of CDU-CSU judges of the sixteen? Seven. SPD members? Six. The Greens have two seats. The FDP have one seat.
Serious impact cases? They come and go. If you asked most Germans over the quantity per year....they'd probably suggest three or four cases which get top priority on some evening news piece. The other hundred decisions might make some part of the nightly news but it'd be a marginal discussion.
The ability of the general public to even name one single member of the court (16 members)? One would suggest that if you lined up a thousand Germans on the street and asked them to name one single member....fewer than ten would be able to do it.
From the lawyer profession....you might find 98-percent who can name the current 'President' of the court...Stephen Harbath....or the VP of the court....Doris Konig. Beyond that, the court members could walk into any pub...have a beer, and not be recognized.
The one oddity of the court system? They are divided into two groups....eight and eight. As cases come in....it's based on luck if you get assigned to group A or group B.
Political battles in the Bundestag or Bundesrat....like in the US? No. If they reached the US level....most of these folks would decline to participate in the hearing, and the system would fall apart.
The biggest impact case which led to internal discussions? About fifteen years ago, after 9-11....the German leadership made up a 'rule' that said that German military fighters could shoot-down a passenger plane if it was taken-over and threatened to crash into something. The government was sued over the idea.
The court examined everything and then briefly talked to three observations: (1) the German military, by law, is designed for relief missions....not military actions which are not permitted by the Constitution. (2) There cannot be a trade-off on shooting down a plane with passengers versus people in a building. (3) ONLY the federal government (not the state or city governments) can order the German military to participate in a relief action. So the shoot-down idea collapsed....with a lot of Germans standing there and wondering....why exactly were they paying taxes for the military to exist at that point.
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