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Karlsruhe – In the dispute over its right to chair committees in the Bundestag, the AfD parliamentary group has failed at the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG). Two AfD organ complaints were unsuccessful today.

The holding of elections to determine committee chairs and the removal of the chair of the Legal Affairs Committee are within the scope of the Bundestag’s autonomy in determining its rules of procedure, explained the presiding judge of the Second Senate, Doris König.

The constitutional judges today paid attention to the fact that the chairpersons fulfill a special organizational function. They therefore represent the committee to the outside world. This requires a relationship of trust between the committee members and the respective chairpersons. If there are sufficient reasons that this relationship is disrupted, they can be voted out or not elected.

Although committees must reflect the composition of the Bundestag when they take on tasks of the plenary or prepare its decisions, this does not apply to organizational functions, said König when announcing the verdict.

In the current legislative period, AfD candidates failed to achieve the required majority in elections for the chairmanship of three Bundestag committees – including the Health Committee. The parliamentary group therefore does not hold a committee chair – although it would be entitled to three based on the strength of its parliamentary group.

The AfD saw its rights to equal treatment as a parliamentary group, to effective opposition and to fair and loyal application of the Bundestag’s rules of procedure violated and filed a constitutional complaint with the Senate in Karlsruhe (case no. 2 BvE 10/21).

Bundestag committees are reappointed and filled in each electoral term. Which parliamentary group chairs which committee is actually negotiated in the Council of Elders. If there is no agreement – as after the federal election in September 2021 – an access order is calculated based on the strength of the parliamentary groups.

During this legislative period, the AfD took control of the Committee on Interior Affairs, the Committee on Health and the Committee on Development Cooperation.

Because there was opposition, an election was held. Accordingly, there were secret elections in all three committees on December 15, 2021 – and all three AfD candidates clearly missed the required majority. A second attempt on January 12, 2022 ended with the same result. So far, the deputy chairmen have headed the committees concerned.

“The ruling strengthens parliament and the rights of every single member of parliament,” said the acting chair of the Bundestag’s Health Committee, Kirsten Kappert-Gonther (Greens), today. She stressed that the committee had “held many secret, democratic elections for the chair.” No AfD candidate received a majority. “The ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court has now confirmed that this was not an unlawful act.”

“The committee chairs are too important to be filled by unqualified people,” said the parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, after the decision from Karlsruhe. The government factions would now propose to clarify the Bundestag’s rules of procedure so that in future there would be clear rules for the removal of committee chairs and also secretaries in the Bundestag presidium.

“With today’s ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, we have achieved a final clarification,” said Christos Pantazis, deputy health policy spokesman and chairman of the SPD parliamentary group.

The current chairman of the Development Committee, Christoph Hoffmann (FDP), was pleased. “No one can be forced to elect representatives of a party that has been classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist case,” he explained.

Also heard at Germany’s highest constitutional court was a lawsuit filed by the AfD against the ousting of the then chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee, Stephan Brandner, in November 2019 (case no. 2 BvE 1/20).

After several scandals, all committee members with the exception of the AfD MPs voted for his dismissal in the last legislative period – a unique event in the history of the Bundestag. The lawsuit against the dismissal was also unsuccessful today.

After the verdict, Brandner said it was a “black day for parliamentarism.” Majorities can change, and “one or two of the current majority will probably soon have to get used to the fact that their committee chairmen will not be elected even if they make absurd statements.” © dpa/afp/may/bee/aerzteblatt.de