1 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2728/13 (Jan. 14, 2014), https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/decisions/rs20140114_2bvr272813en.html [hereinafter OMT Decision].Google Scholar

2 See, e.g., Nienhaus, Lisa & Siedenbiedel, Christian, Richter Hasenherz, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Feb. 9, 2014, at 19 (calling the judges in their acid—almost insulting—comment procrastinators (Zauderer) and cowards (Hasenherzen, i. e. rabbit hearts); Steltzner, Holger, Die Angst der Verfassungsrichter, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 7, 2014, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/kommentar-die-angst-der-verfassungsrichter-12790009.html.Google Scholar

3 Compare Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 1390/12 (Sep. 12, 2012) (A part of the proceedings were separated and continued with the reference for a preliminary ruling at hand), https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/decisions/rs20140114_2bvr272813en.html; and Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], 2 BvR 1390/12 (Dec. 17, 2013) (separation decision).Google Scholar

4 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2661/06, BVerfGE 126, 286 (Jul. 6, 2010) (“This means for the ultra vires review at hand that the Federal Constitutional Court must comply with the rulings of the Court of Justice in principle as a binding interpretation of Union law. Prior to the acceptance of an ultra vires act on the part of the European bodies and institutions, the Court of Justice is therefore to be afforded the opportunity to interpret the Treaties, as well as to rule on the validity and interpretation of the legal acts in question, in the context of preliminary ruling proceedings according to Article 267 TFEU. As long as the Court of Justice did not have an opportunity to rule on the questions of Union law which have arisen, the Federal Constitutional Court may not find any inapplicability of Union law for Germany”), available at http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rs20100706_2bvr266106en.html.Google Scholar

5 Fabio, Udo Di, Die Weisheit der Richter, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Feb. 8, 2014, at 20 (Matter-of-fact style).Google Scholar

6 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvE 2/08, 2 BvE 5/08, 2 BvR 1010/08, 2 BvR 1022/08, 2 BvR 1259/08, 2 BvR 182/09, BVerfGE 123, 267 (Jun. 30, 2009), http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html; see also Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 987, 1485, 1099/10 (Sep. 7, 2011), https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20110907_2bvr098710.html; see also Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 1390, 1421, 1438, 1439, 1440/12, 2 BvE 6/12 (Sep. 12, 2012), https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/decisions/rs20120912_2bvr139012en.html. For a detailed analysis, see Lehner, Roman, Die „Integrationsverfassungsbeschwerde“ nach Art. 38 Abs. 1 S. 1 GG: prozessuale und materiell-rechtliche Folgefragen zu einer objektiven Verfassungswahrungsbeschwerde, 52 Der Staat 535 (2013), available at http://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/abs/10.3790/staa.52.4.535.Google Scholar

7 See OMT Decision at §22.Google Scholar

8 A semantically etatistic German version of the rule of law.Google Scholar

9 The complaints were filed by a colourful bunch of complainants. There are known politicians and political idealists, a collection of 11,693 joint-complaints (instigated by a pro-democracy group), as well as complainants whose outcry for democracy might rather result from an itching in the purse.Google Scholar

10 There is also a parliamentary group who applied in an Organstreit proceeding, which is an action reserved to certain constitutional organs to defend their competences in competence disputes. I will not discuss this proceeding here, because its peculiarities would need further explanation.Google Scholar

11 See OMT Decision, at § 1.Google Scholar

12 See Id. Google Scholar

13 Cf. OMT Decision at § 38.Google Scholar

14 Compare Wahl, Rainer, Die Rolle staatlicher Verfassungen angesichts der Europäisierung und der Internationalisierung in Der Eigenwert des Verfassungsrechts 355 (Thomas Vesting & Stefan Korioth eds., 2011), with Schönberger, Christoph, Der schleichende Bedeutungsverlust des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, in Verwaltung, Verfassung, Kirche: Konstanzer Symposium aus Anlass des 80. Geburtstages von Hartmut Maurer, 55 (Martin Ibler ed., 2012) (in particular with regard to institutional consequences for the BVerfG).Google Scholar

15 See Sacksofsky, Ute, Wer darf eigentlich wählen? Wahlberechtigung in den USA und Deutschland, in Demokratie-Perspektiven – Festschrift für Brun-Otto Bryde zum 70. Geburtstag 313, 314 (Michael Bäuerle et al. eds., 2013).Google Scholar

16 See OMT Decision, at § 17 (“According to the established jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, the individual's right under Art. 38 sec. 1 sentence 1 GG to elect the German Bundestag is not limited to a formal legitimation of (federal) state power, but also entails the fundamental democratic content of the right to vote”); See also id. at § 51.Google Scholar

17 OMT Decision, at § 17.Google Scholar

18 See id. at § 17.Google Scholar

19 Id. at § 19; see, e.g., Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 2134, 2159/92 (Oct. 12, 1993); see also Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvE 2, 5/08, 2 BvR 1010, 1022, 1259/08, 182/09 (Jun. 30, 2009); see also Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 987, 1485, 1099/10 (Sep. 7, 2011).Google Scholar

20 This was interpreted as some kind of actio popularis (Popularverfassungsbeschwerde) by Baumann, Anna, Die europäische Integration unter Wahrung der nationalen Verfassung – Die “Europa-Entscheidungen” des Bundesverfassungsrichts, 121, 128 (Anna Baumann et al. eds., 2014).Google Scholar

21 Critical e. g. Schönberger, Christoph, Erwiderung: Der introvertierte Rechtsstaat als Krönung der Demokratie? – Zur Entgrenzung von Art. 38 GG im Europaverfassungsrecht, 65 Juristenzeitung 1160 (2010).Google Scholar

22 Thym, Daniel, Europäische Integration im Schatten souveräner Staatlichkeit – Anmerkungen zum Lissabon-Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, 48 Der Staat 579, 579 n.93 (2009).Google Scholar

23 See Schorkopf, Frank, The European Union as An Association of Sovereign States: Karlsruhe's Ruling on the Treaty of Lisbon, 10 German L.J. 1219, 1221 (2009); see also Schönberger, Christoph, Lisbon in Karlsruhe: Maastricht's Epigones At Sea, 10 German L.J. 1201, 1204 (2009).Google Scholar

24 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvE 2/08, 2 BvE 5/08, 2 BvR 1010/08, 2 BvR 1022/08, 2 BvR 1259/08, 2 BvR 182/09, BVerfGE 123, 267 (Jun. 30, 2009), http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Jestaedt, Matthias, Warum in die Ferne schweifen, wenn der Maßstab liegt so nah? Verfassungshandwerkliche Anfragen an das Lissabon-Urteil des BVerfG, 48 Der Staat 498, 503 (2009).Google Scholar

26 Compare Müller, Reinhard, Wer hat das letzte Wort, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 8, 2014, at 1 (The Court as a substitute for a practically inefficient opposition); with Jestaedt, supra note 25, at 504 (supposes that the BVerfG just sought a practical way to decide on the merits to ventilate discontent with the progress of European integration).Google Scholar

27 See Möllers, Christoph, 'We are (afraid of) the people': Constituent Power in German Constitutionalism, in The Paradox of Constitutionalism 87, 94 (Martin Loughlin & Neil Walker eds., 2007); see also Lehner, Roman, Die “Integrationsverfassungsbeschwerde” nach Art. 38 Abs. 1 S. 1 GG: prozessuale und materiell-rechtliche Folgefragen zu einer objektiven Verfassungswahrungsbeschwerde, 52 Der Staat 535, 562 (2013) (The punch line of the integration control via the right to vote was overloaded with constitutional requirements regarding the European integration, thus, the voters do not need their vote anymore to show discontent with general integration policy), available at http://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/abs/10.3790/staa.52.4.535.Google Scholar

28 See Grefrath, Holger, Exposé eines Verfassungsprozessrechts von den Letztfragen? – Das Lissabon-Urteil zwischen actio pro socio und negativer Theologie, 135 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 221, 240 (2010).Google Scholar

29 It is a strong German tradition to interpret even the assignment of competences between federation and constituent states as a means to protect individual freedom by establishing checks and balances. See, e. g., Bauer, Hartmut, Entwicklungstendenzen und Perspektiven des Föderalismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 55 Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 837, 838 (2002); Cornils, Matthias, Gewaltenteilung, in Verfassungstheorie, 61 (Otto Depenheuer & Christoph Grabenwarter eds., 2010); Christian Heitsch, Die Ausführung der Bundesgesetze durch die Länder 8 (2001); Isensee, Josef, Der Föderalismus und der Verfassungsstaat der Gegenwart, in 115 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 248, 269 (1990); Kirchhof, Paul, Der materielle Gehalt der Kompetenznormen, in Europa im Wandel: Festschrift für Hans-Werner Rengeling 567, 568 (2008).Google Scholar

30 See Rainer Wahl, Herausforderungen und Antworten: Das Öffentliche Recht der letzten fünf Jahrzehnte 20–30, 35–38 (2006); See also Schönberger, Christoph, Verwaltungsrecht als konkretisiertes Verfassungsrecht, in Das Bonner Grundgesetz – Altes Recht und neue Verfassung in den ersten Jahrzehnten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1949–1969) 53, 58–75 (Michael Stolleis, ed., 2006).Google Scholar

31 See OMT Decision, at § 53.Google Scholar

32 Compare for the specific problems of multi-level democratic status relations Möllers, Christoph, Demokratische Ebenegliederung, in Festschrift für Rainer Wahl 759 (2011).Google Scholar

33 See OMT Decision, at § 132.Google Scholar

34 See OMT Decision, at § 12.Google Scholar

35 Id. at § 30.Google Scholar

36 See Id. Google Scholar

37 See Klaus Ferdinand Gärditz/Christian Hillgruber, Volkssouveränität und Demokratie ernst genommen – Zum Lissabon-Urteil des BVerfG 64 Juristenzeitung 872, 874 (2009).Google Scholar

38 Cf. Gesetz über das Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGG] [Federal Constitutional Court Act], Mar. 12, 1951, Bundesgesetzblatt [BGBl] 1473, as amended, § 13.Google Scholar

39 See Lübbe-Wolff, Gertrude, Die Bedeutung der Verfassungsbeschwerde für die deutsche Verfassungskultur, in Verfassung in Vergangenheit und Zukunft: Sechs Jahrzehnte Erfahrung in Deutschland und Italien 133, 135 (Dieter Grimm et al. eds., 2011).Google Scholar

40 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court of Germany], Case No. 2 BvR 2661/06 (Jul 6, 2010).Google Scholar

41 The European General Court in first instance quashed actions advanced by individual claimants against the OMT Decision because the latter did not have any direct effect on rights of the relevant plaintiffs. See Case T-492/12, von Storch and Others v. ECB, 2013 E.C.R. II-0000, n.35 et seq.Google Scholar

42 Thus, Justice Lübbe-Wolff in her dissenting opinion in the OMT decision clearly distinguishes between preemptive constitutional identity control on the one hand and ultra vires control as substantive standard on the other hand, and rejects a right to vote-standing with regard to the latter. OMT Decision at § 53.Google Scholar

43 For the reception in international law doctrine, compare pars pro toto Andreas Paulus, Die internationale Gemeinschaft im Völkerrecht 363 et seq. (2001).Google Scholar

44 Compare Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Grundgesetz] [GG] [Basic Law], May 23, 1949, BGBl. I at Art. 93 § 1, No. 4a; with Gesetz über das Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGG] [Federal Constitutional Court Act], Mar. 12, 1951, Bundesgesetzblatt [BGBl] 1473, as amended, § 90, para. 1.Google Scholar

45 The Court expressly denies this but gives no further explanation on that issue. See OMT Decision at § 19 (Article 38 GG “does not grant citizens a right to have the lawfulness of democratic majority decisions reviewed by the Federal Constitutional Court.”).Google Scholar

46 See Id. at § 24 (Lübbe-Wolff's dissenting opinion).Google Scholar

47 Id. at § 53.Google Scholar

48 Id. at § 49.Google Scholar

49 Id. Google Scholar

50 Id. Google Scholar

51 Cf. id. at § 22 (Lübbe-Wolff's dissenting opinion).Google Scholar

52 The Organstreit application of the parliamentary group is merely a declaratory action, as the Constitutional Court can only declare that a specific conduct of a state organ violated the constitution. Compare BVerfGG, § 67 (first sentence); with BVerfGG, § 95, para. 1 (See the first sentence. Allows for a declaratory judgement, too, but only insofar as it can declare that an act of public authority violated a fundamental right. This provision does not match regarding the legal consequence of ultra vires control, but the Court has never treated its statutory procedural law with respect; instead, the Court would probably derive its competence directly from the Grundgesetz).Google Scholar

53 Cf. OMT Decision at § 18 (dissenting opinion Lübbe-Wolff).Google Scholar

54 Id. at § 103.Google Scholar

55 Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA Inc., 133 U.S. 1138, 1146 (2013);. Compare DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 341, 353 (2006); with Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492 (2009) (When a specific need for review in a concrete case is not at hand, “allowing courts to oversee legislative or executive action would significantly alter the allocation of power … away from a democratic form of government”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, access to judicial review is strictly limited to individual cases and controversies in concrete factual context. See Schlesinger v. Reservists Commission to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 221 (1974); Valley Forge College v. Americans United, 454 U.S. 464, 471 (1982).Google Scholar

56 See OMT Decision at § 7 (dissenting opinion Lübbe-Wolff): “creative elements”.Google Scholar

57 Moellers, Christoph, The Three Branches – A Comparative Model of Separation of Powers 129 (2013).Google Scholar

58 See id. Google Scholar

59 It would, of course, be beyond the functions of any court to develop or rely on theoretical concepts of state, of legitimacy, or of integration. See Andreas Voßkuhle, Die Staatstheorie des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, in Verabschiedung und Wiederentdeckung des Staates im Spannungsfeld der Disziplinen 371, 372 et seq. (Andreas Voßkuhle et al. eds., 2013).Google Scholar

60 See Möllers, Christoph, Individuelle Legitimation: Wie rechtfertigen sich Gerichte?, in Der Aufstieg der Legitimitätspolitik 398 (Anna Geis/ et al., eds., 2012).Google Scholar

61 See OMT Decision at §§ 2 et seq. (dissenting opinion Lübbe-Wolff).Google Scholar

62 See Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann, Verwaltungsrechtliche Dogmatik 109 (2013).Google Scholar

63 Cf. Danwitz, Thomas von, Europäisches Verwaltungsrecht 24 (2008).Google Scholar

64 See, e.g., Hufen, Friedhelm, Verwaltungsprozessrecht § 14, No. 56 (9th ed., 2013); Wolf-Rüdiger Schenke, Verwaltungsprozessrecht No. 490 (13^th ed., 2012); Thomas Würtenberger, Verwaltungsprozessrecht No. 274 (3rd ed., 2011).Google Scholar

65 An instrumental construal is that of the mobilization of the citizens as agents of indirect enforcement of EU law. See Johannes Masing, Die Mobilisierung des Bürgers für die Durchsetzung des Rechts 196 et seq. (1998).Google Scholar

66 Perhaps a little bit oversimplified but striking is the discussion in Oliver Lepsius, Hat das Europäische Verwaltungsrecht Methode? Oder: Die zwei Phasen der Europäisierung des Verwaltungsrechts, in Das Europäische Verwaltungsrecht in der Konsolidierungsphase 179, 186 (Peter Axer et al. eds., 2010). For the development, see Martin Burgi, VERWALTUNGSPROZEß und Europarecht 57 et seq. (1996).Google Scholar

67 See Dünchheim, Thomas, Verwaltungsprozeßrecht unter europäischem Einfluß 105 et seq. (2003); Dirk Ehlers, Die Europäisierung des VErwaltungsprozeßrechts 48 et seq. (1999); Friedrich Schoch, Die Europäisierung des verwaltungsgerichtlichen Rechtsschutzes 34 (2000).Google Scholar

68 See Council Directive 2011/92/EU, art. 11, 2011 O.J. (L 26) 1 (EC) (on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment); Council Directive 2010/75/EU, art. 25, 2011 O.J. (L 334) 17 (EC).Google Scholar

69 See Ass'n for Env't & Nature Conservation Germany, Nat'l Ass'n Nordrhein-Westfalen eV v. Arnsberg Dist., CJEU Case C-115/09, 2011 E.C.R. I-3673; Gemeinde Altrip (Municipality of Altrip), Gebrüder Hört GbR, Willi Schneider v. Rhineland-Palatinate, CJEU Case C-72/12, 2013 E.C.R. I-0000.Google Scholar

70 A representative action can be filed by certain accredited groups—in particular environmental NGOs—by express statutory empowerment to enforce objective law that does not provide individual rights but exclusively protects public interests, like, for example, nature conservation law. See Schlacke, Sabine, Überindividueller Rechtsschutz 102 et seq. (2008).Google Scholar

71 The basically useful concept to mobilize the citizen as an agent of public interest has been developed in administrative law to solve concrete deficits of law enforcement by decentralizing control. Compare Masing, supra note 65, at 231; Schlacke, supra note 70, at 484.Google Scholar

72 Nonetheless, German administrative courts will apparently profit from tendencies of ECJ jurisprudence to expand, in particular, European fundamental rights, as the precedent of EU law empowers courts to evade a referral to the Bundesverfassungsgericht pursuant to Article 100, section 1 GG when quashing a parliamentary statute. See Daniel Thym, Die Reichweite der EU-Grundrechte-Charta, 32 NVwZ 889, 895 (2013).Google Scholar

73 Ironically, one of the fiercest critics among German legal scholars, who has accused the narrow concept of subjective rights under the German legal doctrine to give undue preference to individual interests over public interest and, thus, demanded—as a counterbalance—forms of standing for the citoyen in court, was the same Justice at the Constitutional Court who delivered the effulgent dissenting opinion criticising the majority's permissiveness in granting the complainants standing. See, e. g., Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht, 60 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 246, 278 (2000); Lübbe-Wolff, Gertrude, Instrumente des Umweltrechts - Leistungsfähigkeit und Leistungsgrenzen, 20 Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht 481, 493 (2001) (It was outdated that the administrative law only took the citizens seriously while acting as burgeois pursueing selfish interest and ignored the citizen as altruistic citoyen acting on behalf of the public interest).Google Scholar

74 See OMT Decision at § 103 (“At present, it is not foreseeable whether in addition to this, through individual implementation measures of the OMT Decision and with regard to possible losses of the Bundesbank and ensuing effects on the federal budget, consequences for the budgetary autonomy of the German Bundestag could arise in a way that affects Article 79 section 3 GG. If necessary, the Senate would have to examine this on the basis of the Court of Justice's interpretation of the OMT Decision without another question referred for a preliminary ruling, and it would have to determine the inapplicability of the respective act of implementation in Germany, because the identity review is not to be assessed according to Union law but exclusively according to German constitutional law”).Google Scholar

75 Nález Ústavního soudu ze dne 31.01.2012 (ÚS) [Decision of the Constitutional Court of Jan. 31, 2012], Pl. ÚS 5/12 (Czech).Google Scholar

76 Müller, Reinhard, Wer hat das letzte Wort, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 8, 2014, at 1.Google Scholar

77 See OMT Decision at § 26.Google Scholar

78 For commentary on the Lisbon case, see Schorkopf, Frank, The European Union as An Association of Sovereign States: Karlsruhe's Ruling on the Treaty of Lisbon, 10 German L.J. 1219, 1232 (2009) (“The Court wants to play a more active role in European legal matters. Potential complainants and applicants will attentively take notice of this signal. How the Federal Constitutional Court will deal with the additional number of cases is one of the exciting follow up questions.”).Google Scholar