The Rule of the Courts

Jörn Axel Kämmerer

an amendment of the Basic Law (requiring the consent of, inter alia , two thirds of the members of the Bundestag according to Art. 79 (2) BL) might be in peril. It was, to stay with our fable, an antedated winter warning. The year 2015 heralded a radical change in Germany’s political landscape. Perceived mass immigration from war-torn Syria into Germany and then-reluctance of its federal government to stop it were grist on the mills of the self-proclaimed “Alternative für Deutschland” (“ Alternative for Germany ”). The AfD has since evolved to a party that is anti-EU, illiberal and Russia-friendly and was recently rated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz ) as “demonstrably right-wing extremist”. 10 Despite this, it has attracted ever more votes. In the 2025 elections, it scored more than 20% of all votes and 24% of the seats in the Federal Parliament. This was still well below the 33% of MPs which they would have needed to singlehandedly block consti tutional amendments. The same applies to the election of Constitutional Justices (where this is incumbent on the Bundestag ). Yet, just as the polls had predicted, the centre-left and centre-right parties (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Greens) all together fell short of the “magic” two thirds of MPs and would now need the endorsement by the far-left Die Linke for an agreed amendment of the Basic Law. In anticipation of this scenario, the coalition (then composed of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals) negotiated with the main opposition party (then the Christian Democrats) a master plan. On 19 December 2024, in other words, only two days before the astronomic break of winter – high time for the cicada –, the Federal Parliament adopted, by a vast majority (but against the votes of most AfD and Die Linke deputies), the proposed legislative package on the Federal Constitutional Court including constitutional amendments. 11 Eight days later, on 27 December 10 Against this assessment, action was filed by the AfD. The Federal Office committed itself to a “standstill” until the judgment will be delivered, that is, it will not reiterate its findings in the meantime. See https://rsw.beck.de/aktuell/daily/meldung/detail/afd-klagt gegen-verfassungsschutz. 11 Cf. Federal Law Gazette / BGBl. 2024 I No. 439, 27 December 2024, available at https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2024/439/VO.html. – To pass yet another constitutional

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