All three candidates for the German Constitutional Court cleared their first hurdle on Monday evening, July 7th, when the parliament’s election committee approved their nomination with a two-thirds majority ahead of the final confirmation vote in the Bundestag on Friday.
The three include the radical leftist Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, who made a name for herself by advocating for banning the AfD and finding ways to “eliminate” its voter base, as well as saying that the constitutional right of ‘human dignity’ applies only after birth.
All three nominees aiming to fill the two vacancies were appointed by the ruling coalition parties” one by Chancellor Merz’s ‘center-right’ CDU and two by the social democrat SPD, which have agreed to support each other’s candidates.
The CDU and SPD have seven of the twelve committee seats combined, meaning they required only one more to push through their candidates. The Greens and far-left Die Linke each have one seat, while AfD has three.
While the AfD supported the CDU candidate, Federal Labor Court Judge Günter Spinner, for making a “reasonable impression” on them, the national conservatives rejected both socialist candidates for lacking the necessary neutrality to fill the position. Their candidacies, in turn, were saved by the Greens, a long-term partner of the SPD.
In the final Bundestag vote, however, the ruling parties will need the backing of both the Greens and Die Linke MPs if they want to push through either socialist, and the far-left is probably all ears for the socialists’ offers behind the scenes.
For one, CDU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahl reportedly asked his MEPs to unite behind the socialist candidates despite the well-known reservations of some, especially over Brosius-Gersdorf’s known advocacy to make abortion accessible up until birth.
According to German media reports, Spahl reassured the CDU MPs that even if Brosius-Gersdorf becomes a judge, the SPD promised she will not be given a vice presidency, and then the presidency, of the Constitutional Court.
Clearly, preserving its coalition with the socialists is more important to the CDU leadership than the concerns of its own MPs and electorate.
Nonetheless, the decision is mainly in the hands of Die Linke MPs, who will probably pick Brosius-Gersdorf, due to her left-wing radicalism, over the more moderate Ann-Katrin Kaufhold—but the result will most likely come down to political deals either way.
