Federal Constitutional Court
Karlsruhe is negotiating because of breakdowns in the federal election
As of today, the Federal Constitutional Court is dealing with an election scrutiny complaint from the Union faction in the Bundestag. photo
© Uli Deck/dpa
Peter Müller compared the election mishaps in Berlin with the situation in a dictatorial developing country. Now, as a constitutional judge, he must examine the extent to which the vote should be made up for.
Almost two years after the general election, the Federal Constitutional Court now about the breakdowns on election day in Berlin and to what extent the vote has to be repeated. For two days, the highest German court wants to deal with an election scrutiny complaint from the Union faction in the Bundestag. A verdict is expected in a few months. According to a court spokesman, there are 61 other complaints related to the federal election, including one from the AfD faction.
The election on September 26, 2021 was chaotic in many Berlin polling stations: there were long queues and waiting times, wrong or missing ballot papers. Polling stations had to close temporarily or stay open well after 6 p.m. According to the information given in 1713, objections were raised to the Bundestag against the Bundestag elections in the state of Berlin, including one from the Federal Returning Officer.
Hundreds of constituencies affected
On November 10, 2022, the Bundestag decided with the votes of the traffic light parliamentary groups SPD, Greens and FDP that the election would only be partially repeated. 327 of the 2,256 constituencies in the capital and 104 of the 1,507 postal voting districts are affected. From the point of view of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, however, the decision is illegal, partly because the Bundestag did not declare the elections in six constituencies contested by the Federal Returning Officer to be invalid overall.
The Karlsruhe judges of the Second Senate, chaired by Court Vice President Doris König, want to take the opportunity to deal with fundamental questions of election verification. The two-day hearing should, for example, deal with details on the issue of incorrect ballot papers, interruptions in the voting process, voting after 6 p.m. and waiting times, as well as the scale for the severity of the errors and possible legal consequences.
No date has yet been set for the repeat election – no matter to what extent. Berlin’s state returning officer, Stephan Bröchler, said in June that he was preparing with his office and the districts to hold the repeat election after just 60 days as soon as the constitutional court had made its decision.
Debate about Judge Peter Müller
A few days ago, the Bundestag failed in its attempt to officially join the Union’s process. Because there are no legal regulations for this, the court rejected this. Thus – as a mere party to the proceedings – Parliament could not request that the lead judge Peter Müller be rejected because of bias. In the “FAZ objection podcast” he said that a situation like that in Berlin could have been imagined a few decades ago in a “dictatorial so-called developing country”, but not in the middle of Europe, in the middle of Germany.
The election of the Berlin House of Representatives, which was also affected by the breakdowns on election day in September 2021, was completely repeated on February 12 of this year. Shortly before, the constitutional judges in Karlsruhe had given the green light in an urgent procedure. In a statement submitted later, it was said that according to the federal constitution, the Federal Constitutional Court was not a second instance above the state constitutional courts, which reviewed their judgments consistently and in full.