The Legislative and Executive Branch versus the Federal Constitutional Court and the Judiciary - Conflict or Cooperation?

Abstract

The German Constitutional Court took up its work in 1951, almost two years after the constitution came into effect. The reason for this was that the Court needed a procedural code and could not operate merely on the provisions contained in the Basic Law, which had come into effect on 23 May 1949. That procedural code, spelling out the requirements and rules for the several procedures available at this court and the rules pertaining to the judges and the organization of the court, came into effect in 1951. The 'BVerfG' is actually more than one court. It consists of 16 judges who are organized in two separate panels ('senates') of eight judges each. The two senates are two separate decision making bodies of the court, each with specific tasks that are allocated to them. The full plenary of 16 judges is responsible mainly for organizing the work of the Court and becomes judicially relevant only when conflicts between the two senates in the treatment of a question of constitutional law arise. Underneath the two senates, the court is organized in chambers of three judges, that deal with the admissibility of constitutional complaints, a specific procedure provided for individuals to bring matters to the Court. The sheer number of constitutional complaints brought to the Court has resulted in the necessity to institute this 'pre-screening' procedure to reduce the number of cases to be decided on the merits to a manageable level.