BERLIN, July 26: Germany’s highest court has ruled that the country’s reformed electoral law introduced by Chancellor Angela Merkel was unconstitutional and ordered its overhaul before the next general election in 2013.
The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe yesterday ruled that the reformed parliamentary electoral law was unconstitutional as it “violated the basic principles of equality and constitutionally-guaranteed equal chances for all parties”.
The court ordered the government to put in place a new electoral law before the next parliamentary election in in 2013.
The ruling, which follows a judgement in 2008 when the court said the system could give an advantage to bigger parties, makes clear last year’s changes left a system that was still at odds with the Constitution.
The court delivered its verdict on petitions filed by the parliamentary groups of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green party as well as by over 3,000 citizens, who complained that their basic rights were violated and they were unfairly disadvantaged by the law.
At the centre of the dispute was the so-called “overhang mandates”, additional seats a party can get if it wins more direct seats than the number of seats it is entitled to on the basis of the percentage of second votes cast for it.
Under Germany’s voting system of proportional representation, each voter casts two votes—one for the candidate of a constituency and the second for the party.
Major political parties traditionally benefited from the “overhang” seats and used them to bolster their parliamentary majority.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been a main beneficiary and it has 24 “overhang” seats in the current Bundestag.
The electoral law was reformed and passed by the Bundestag in November last year solely with the support of the ruling coalition.
Delivering yesterday’s verdict, President of the Constitutional Court Andreas Vosskuehle said in view of the history of the new electoral law, the court sees no possibility to accept the unconstitutional situation once again for a transitional period.
The opposition parties hailed the verdict as a major blow for Merkel’s coalition government. (PTI)
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