Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court reviews constitutional questions involving legislation, executive action and decisions by ordinary courts, Professors Susanne Baer and Christoph Möllers explained in an interview published Sept. 11, 2026. The 16-member court receives about 10,000 constitutional complaints from citizens each year and can also hear cases brought by lower courts, state organs, political parties and their members.
Unlike Germany’s five supreme courts for statutory law, the Federal Constitutional Court applies constitutional law and technically exercises original rather than appellate jurisdiction. It has two senates of eight justices, while chambers of three decide most smaller cases. Baer said the court controls the legislature, executive and regular courts under Article 1, section 3 of the Basic Law. Its authority also includes constitutional disputes between federal and state institutions, proceedings to prohibit political parties and requests to remove the president.
Half of the justices are selected by the Bundestag and half by the Bundesrat, with each selection requiring a two-thirds majority. Baer said that requirement generally forces governing parties to obtain opposition support and has produced an informal system in which larger parties propose candidates but must reach agreement across political lines. Justices currently serve for 12 years or until age 68. Möllers described the resulting court as generally centrist and said it is not perceived as acting with partisan intentions, even when its decisions have dramatic political effects.
Cases are assigned in advance to a reporting justice under published regulations renewed every other year. The reporting justice prepares the case with four clerks and drafts an opinion after deliberations; the text is then revised and considered line by line. Five votes are sufficient in an eight-member senate, but Baer and Möllers said the court emphasizes consensus. Unanimous judgments are issued per curiam, and separate opinions are permitted but rare.
Among its recent major rulings, the court held that a federal budget arrangement violated the constitutional budget constraint known as the “Schuldenbremse.” Baer said the decision eventually brought the government to an end, while Möllers said it eliminated the financial room available to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government and led to its demise in 2024. The court has also addressed European Central Bank oversight, the relationship between national fundamental-rights review and the European Court of Justice, parliamentary access to government information and the standards governing efforts to prohibit political parties.
Historically, the court has ruled on party prohibitions, German reunification treaties, European integration, free speech, protests, religious freedom, sex equality, protections for transgender and intersex people, labor relations, social security and asylum-seeker benefits. Its 2021 climate decision required the government to account for “intertemporal freedom,” according to Baer. Both professors characterized the institution as powerful and influential; Baer stressed that it has neither control of public spending nor enforcement force, while Möllers said its authority is institutional rather than a mechanism for shifting power between political parties.