The AfD parliamentary group also failed with a second lawsuit in Karlsruhe to elect the Bundestag Vice President.

In the second organ lawsuit heard today, the parliamentary group tried to win a post for itself in the Bundestag Presidium at the Federal Constitutional Court.

The Karlsruhe judges rejected the application as obviously unfounded, as they announced on Tuesday.

There is no constitutional obligation on the Bundestag to organize the election in such a way that the result is in favor of the AfD.

(Az. 2 BvE 9/20)

Immediately before, they had also announced their verdict on the unsuccessful lawsuit filed by a single AfD MP.

In it, AfD MP Fabian Jacobi tried to propose a candidate for the office as an individual MP.

According to the Federal Constitutional Court, however, the Bundestag may limit the right to nominate vice-presidents to the parliamentary groups.

(Az: 2 BvE 2/20)

Jacobi and the AfD in the preliminary urgent procedure also wanted to ensure that individual MPs also had the right to propose the deputy posts by the second ballot at the latest.

The Federal Constitutional Court has now decided that the Bundestag could restrict this right of proposal to the parliamentary groups.

The background to the procedure is the failure of the AfD candidates in the distribution of the deputy posts for the Bundestag presidency of the past electoral term.

According to the rules of procedure, each parliamentary group is entitled to at least one seat on the presidency, but the members are elected by the deputies.

This requires an absolute majority in the first and second ballots, but only a simple majority in a third ballot.

During an election attempt in November 2019, Jacobi announced that he wanted to make his own election proposal in addition to the proposal from his parliamentary group.

The then President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and then the Vice President Petra Pau (Left), who chaired the session, rejected this because an individual member of parliament was not entitled to such a right to propose.

"Constitutionally justified intervention"

Jacobi, on the other hand, initiated the so-called organ dispute proceedings in Karlsruhe, which have now been decided.

He saw his constitutionally enshrined right to the participation of all members of parliament violated.

The Federal Constitutional Court has now emphasized that these rights of members of parliament may be restricted in order to “protect equivalent constitutional goods”.

In concrete terms, this was done here in the interest of the functioning of Parliament.

As justification, the Federal Constitutional Court referred to the Rules of Procedure clause, according to which each parliamentary group is entitled to at least one deputy post in the Presidency.

Schäuble and Pau interpreted this in such a way that the right to propose must also lie with the parliamentary group.

This is obvious, and there are no constitutional objections to it.

The associated encroachment on the free parliamentary mandate is also constitutionally justified.

The parliamentary groups' right of nomination would involve them in the leadership of the Bundestag.

This will improve the acceptance of organizational decisions by the Bundestag Presidency in the individual parliamentary groups.

In the case of a proposal by individual MPs, on the other hand, a candidate who does not enjoy the confidence of his parliamentary group could be elected, the judges in Karlsruhe emphasized.

This applies all the more when, as here, such a proposal appears alongside the election proposal of the parliamentary group.

Instead, Jacobi had the opportunity to campaign for his candidate within his own AfD faction.