personal details
Court stops Federal Fiscal Court Vice President
The Federal Fiscal Court in Munich’s Bogenhausen district. The Bavarian Administrative Court (BayVGH) has stopped the appointment of the new Vice President of the Federal Fiscal Court. Photo: Peter Kneffel/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Saarland’s former Secretary of State for Justice, Anke Mosch, cannot become Vice President of the Federal Fiscal Court. That was decided by a Bavarian court. The appointment was controversial anyway.
The Bavarian Administrative Court (BayVGH) has stopped the appointment of the new Vice President of the Federal Fiscal Court. The reason is that the former federal government wrongly gave preference to the chosen judge Anke Morsch, according to the court.
The Federal Ministry of Justice acted accordingly “illegally”. Three unsuccessful applicants for the deputy post at the highest German tax court would actually have been better qualified, as can be seen from the decision published on Monday.
Morsch (SPD) used to be State Secretary for Justice in Saarland and is currently President of the Saarland Finance Court. Her selection was controversial from the start. The presidents of the federal courts, the German Association of Judges and the Association of Judges at the Federal Fiscal Court had criticized the procedure, some of them sharply. The question is whether the former justice minister and current defense minister, Christine Lambrecht (SPD), and the grand coalition promoted politically acceptable candidates to management posts who did not meet the technical requirements.
Further action still unclear
It was initially unclear how the current Federal Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann (FDP), now wants to fill the position that has been vacant since autumn 2020; shortly after the decision was published, the ministry did not comment.
The Administrative Court confirmed a previous decision by the Munich Administrative Court, against which the federal government had lodged an appeal. Appeals are not possible. The selection criteria for managerial positions in the federal courts actually stipulate that applicants should generally have five years of experience in the respective court. But Morsch does not meet this criterion any more than Hans-Josef Thesling, a North Rhine-Westphalian ministerial official who has meanwhile been appointed President of the BFH and who drove on a CDU ticket.
In the case of Thesling, however, there was less controversy than about the appointment of Morsch, because the deputies at the BFH are much more involved in the judiciary than the presidents, who do more administrative work and also have to represent the BFH to the outside world.
Specifically, the Bavarian Administrative Court criticized legal errors by the Ministry of Justice in the “performance comparison” of applicants for the deputy position. The Federal Ministry of Justice was not allowed to assume “a tie or a lead for the selected applicant”, the statement said. This means that, according to the judges, Morsch was not even qualified as well as the competition, let alone better.