- The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the Commission has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty.
The reform of the Federal Election Act introduced by the traffic light coalition is partly unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled so. The issue concerns the abolition of the so-called basic mandate clause in the new election law.
According to this, parties also entered the Bundestag in the strength of their second vote results if they were below the five percent hurdle but won at least three direct mandates. The court has now provisionally reinstated this, until the legislator has passed a new regulation. (Az. 2 BvF 1/23 et al.)
The judgment was already circulating online on Monday evening. The document was temporarily available on the website of the highest German court and several media reported on it. How it came to be published remained initially unclear.
The new regulation pushed through by the coalition of SPD, FDP and Greens has been in force since June 2023 and is to be applied for the first time at the Bundestag election next year. With the reform, the size of the Bundestag is to be significantly reduced - compared to the current level by more than 100 to a maximum of 630 parliamentarians.
To achieve this, the coalition has abolished overhang and equalization mandates. Overhang mandates have so far been awarded if a party won more direct mandates than it was entitled to seats based on its second vote result. These mandates could then be kept, and the other parties received equalization mandates for this. The abolition of overhang and equalization mandates is considered constitutional by the judges in Karlsruhe.
Above all, the Left and CSU are affected by the reform.
In Karlsruhe, the Bavarian state government, 195 members of the Union faction in the Bundestag, the Left in the Bundestag, as well as the parties CSU and Left, brought an action against the law. Moreover, more than 4000 private individuals filed a constitutional complaint. The applicants and complainants saw above all two fundamental rights violated: the equality of voting rights under Article 38 and the right to equal opportunities for parties under Article 21 of the Basic Law.
In particular, the planned abolition of the basic mandate clause was at stake for CSU and Left. In the 2021 election, the CSU, which only runs in Bavaria, received 5.2 percent of the second votes nationwide. If it were to slip below the five percent mark in the next election, it would be excluded from the Bundestag under the new election law - even if it were to win most of the constituencies in Bavaria directly again.
The Left, on the other hand, only entered the Bundestag in faction strength in the last federal election via the basic mandate clause. The party failed to reach the five percent hurdle in 2021 but won three direct mandates. After the split of the alliance "Sahra Wagenknecht" (BSW), the Left is again in deep crisis. In the European election at the beginning of June, it only achieved 2.7 percent.
The traffic light coalition's reform of the Federal Election Act, which abolishes the basic mandate clause, has been contested due to potential violations of the right to vote equitably and the right to equal opportunities for parties. The CSU, in particular, is concerned about being excluded from the Bundestag if it fails to secure 5% of the nationwide second votes in the next election.
