Overview

• Hans-Jürgen Papier criticized informal party 'Vorschlagsrechte' as lacking any legal basis and harming the authority of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.
• He argued the decades-old allocation practice is ill-suited to a fragmented party landscape and fuels partisan quarrels over appointments.
• Papier proposed that the Bundestag’s Wahlausschuss quietly agree on candidates before putting them to a plenary vote, avoiding formal party labels.
• The Basic Law requires that 16 judges be elected in equal halves by Bundestag and Bundesrat, with each election needing a two-thirds majority.
• His intervention follows the Bundestag’s failed July vote on three judges after the Union withdrew backing for SPD nominee Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, who later pulled out.