The plan aims to prevent the country’s highest court from potential future constitutional changes by extremist politicians.
Germany’s governing coalition and the largest opposition party, the conservative CDU, have outlined a plan to strengthen the independence of the Federal Constitutional Court.
The plan is intended to protect the court from extremist groups’ potential future influence.
The parliamentary groups involved, which make up a comfortable majority of the German parliament, will submit the draft law, which is expected to pass during the governing coalition’s term — which ends in 2025.
The law aims to anchor the court, which is located in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe, in the country’s constitution, which it is not currently a part of.
Judges will also be under an age limit of 68 years old, and their terms will be limited to twelve years.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the changes were due to the “erosion of the rule of law in countries such as Poland and Hungary and the strengthening of the AfD.”
Fears that Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is gaining traction come as the ruling coalition, along with its leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, face increasing unpopularity.
In the European elections in June, the AfD scored 15% below the CDU — and higher than each of the ruling coalition parties individually.
Poland saw the nationalist conservative Law and Justice or PiS party move to establish control over its Constitutional Tribunal after it gained power in 2015.
The contention escalated between the previous PiS-led Polish government and the EU, which, over the dispute, held billions of euros of pandemic recovery funds designated for Poland.
Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court is often the ultimate decision-maker, known for weighing in on bailout plans during the eurozone debt crisis.
Recently, the court has pushed the government to bring forward a date for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to rewrite its politically fraught budget.
Half of the justices are elected by the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, and the other half by the upper house, representing Germany’s 16 state governments.
Candidates are proposed by political parties and need a two-thirds majority to be elected, which, in practice, removes polarising figures.
