CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY

Unlike the American political system and the British political system which essentially have
existed in their current form for centuries, the current German political system is a much more
recent construct dating from 1949 when the American, British and French zones of occupation
were consolidated into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). In 1990, the former
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) joined the Federal Republic.

However, the 1949 constitution embraces a central feature of the original German constitution of
1871 - which brought together Prussia with Europe's other German states (except Austria) - and
the Weimar Constitution of 1919 - which involved a sharing of power between the central
government and local Länder (states) - namely a disperal of authority between different levels of
goverment. So the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) of 1949 deliberately distributes power between the
central government and the Länder.

The vitality of Germany's democratic system and the quality of its political leadership -
Chancellors such as Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963), Willy Brandt (1969-1974), Helmut Schmidt
(1974-1982), Helmut Kohl (1982-1998) and now Angela Merkel - have been enormously
impressive

PROFILE
WRIITEN/RIGID FEDERAL

PARLIMANTARY LIBERALISM

Chancellor’s Democracy

BICAMERAL LEGISLATURE SEPERATION OF POWERS

/DIVISION OF POWERS

Germany is a federation and the residuary powers in Germany lie with the states.
The states are referred to as ‘Landers’.It has a Parliamentary form of Government,
modeled on the British Parliamentary form. But it is not just a replicate of the
system.Germany is called as ‘Chancellor’s Democracy’. Chancellor is the
PM.President is the Constitutional Head.

Salient Features
 Chancellor’s Democracy

1. The Chancellor has a clear-cut superiority over other Ministers.

2. Chancellor Principle: Chancellor has a privilege to determine the broad policy and
other ministers are expected to act as per these guidelines. While a minister works
under these guidelines, he enjoys a lot of autonomy with respect to his department.
This mechanism ensures the stability of the coalition government.

 Cabinet Principle

It comes into existence only when there is a dispute among different departments.
In such a situation decision is taken collectively.

 Constructive Vote of No-Confidence

The motion of no-confidence against the Chancellor is permitted only when those
bringing the notion can prove that they are in a position to form an alternative
government. This is also to deal with the problems of Hung Assembly (Coalition
Government).

Parliament

Germany has two houses:

1. The Bundestag: The lower house in the German political system is the Bundestag.
Its members are elected for a four-year term. The method of election is known as
Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMPR), a more complicated system
than First-Past-The-Post (FPTP), but one which gives a more proportional result (a
variant of this system known as the additional member system is used for the
Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly).

Manner of Elections

Half of the members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies
using the first-past the post method of election. The other half – another 299 – are
elected from the list of the parties on the basis of each Land (the 16 regions that
make up Germany). This means that each voter has two votes in the elections to
the Bundestag:

1. The first vote allows voters to elect their local representatives to the Parliament and
decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies.
2. The second vote is cast for a party list and it is this second vote that determines the
relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag.

The 598 seats are only distributed among the parties that have gained more than
5% of the second votes or at least 3 direct mandates. Each of these parties is
allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has
received.

Reason behind adopting the above Election System

This system is designed to block membership of the Bundestag to small, extremist

parties. As a consequence, there are always a small number of parties with
representation in the Bundestag.

Overhang Seat

In addition to the above, there are certain circumstances in which some candidates
win what is known as an ‘Overhang Seat’, when the seats are being distributed.
This situation occurs if a party has gained more direct mandates in a Land than it is
entitled to, according to the results of the second vote, when it does not forfeit
these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the
Bundestag.

Comparative analysis of Bundestag

One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the American
Congress or the British House of Commons is the lack of time spent on serving
constituents in Germany. This is so because:

1. Only 50% of Bundestag members are directly elected to represent a specific

geographical district.
2. A serving constituency seems not to be perceived, either by the electorate or by the
representatives, as a critical function of the legislator.

 There is also a practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service in the

form of a limited personal staff of Bundestag members (especially compared to
members of the US Congress).

The Bundesrat
 The upper house in the German political system is the Bundesrat. At a first glance,
the composition of the Bundesrat looks similar to other upper houses in federal
states such as the US Congress, since the Bundestag is a body representing all the
German Lander (or regional states).

However, there are two fundamental differences in the German system:

1. Its members are not elected (neither by popular vote nor by the State Parliaments).
They are members of the State Cabinets, which appoint them and can remove them
at any time. Normally, a state delegation is headed by the head of government in
the Land, known in Germany as the Minister- President.
2. The States are not represented by an equal number of delegates, since the
population of the respective state is a major factor in the allocation of votes (rather
than delegates) to each particular Land. The vote allocation can be approximated as
2.01 + the square root of the Land’s population in millions with the additional limit
of a maximum of six votes so that it is consistent with something called the
Penrose method based on game theory. This means that the 16 states have between
three and six delegates.

This unusual method of the composition provides for a total of 69 votes (not seats)
in the Bundesrat. The State Cabinet may then appoint as many delegates as the
state has voted, but is under no obligation to do so; it can restrict the state
delegation even to one single delegate.

The number of members or delegates representing a particular Land does not

matter formally since, in stark contrast to many other legislative bodies, the
delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are required to cast the votes of the
state as a bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective delegate).

This means that in practice it is possible (and quite customary) that only one of the
delegates (the Stimmführer or “leader of the votes” – normally the Minister-
President) casts all the votes of the respective state, even if the other members of
the delegation are present in the chamber.

Even with a full delegate appointment of 69, the Bundesrat is a much smaller body
than the Bundestag with over 600 members. It is unusual for the two chambers of a
bicameral system to be quite so unequal in size. But the Bundesrat has the power to
veto a legislation that affects the powers of the states.

THE EXECUTIVE
The head of state is the President, a largely ceremonial position, elected for a
maximum of two five-year terms. The voters in the election for President are
known collectively as the Federal Convention, which consists of all members of
the Bundestag and an equal number of members nominated by the state legislatures
- a total of 1,260. The current President is Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a member of
the Social Democratic Party and former Foreign Minister, who was elected in
February 2017.

The head of the government is the Chancellor (equivalent to the British Prime
Minister). The current Chancellor is Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) who was elected for a fourth consecutive term in September 2017.
Merkel came into office in 2005 so that she has now served 13 years as Chancellor.
However, following poor performances by her party in both federal and state
elections, she has announced that she will step down as Chancellor at the next
federal elections in 2021.

Every four years, after national elections and the convocation of the newly elected
members of the Bundestag, the Chancellor is elected by a majority of the members
of the Bundestag upon the proposal of the President. This vote is one of the few
cases where a majority of all elected members of the Bundestag must be achieved,
as opposed to a mere majority of those that are currently assembled. This is
referred to as the "Kanzlermehrheit" (Chancellor's majority) and is designed to
ensure the establishment of a stable government.

Most significantly, the Chancellor cannot be dismissed by a simple vote of no

confidence but only by a "constructive vote of no confidence" with majority
support for an alternative named Chancellor. Since 1949, only two constructive
votes of no confidence have been attempted (in 1972 and 1982) and only one (that
in 1982) has been successful. This special type of no confidence vote was invented
in (West) Germany, but is today also used in other nations, such as Belgium,
Spain, Hungary, Slovenia and Lesotho.

In the six decades of the Bundestag, there have been only eight Chancellors - a
remarkable element of stability. In the same period of time, Italy has had almost 40
Prime Ministers (although some have served several separate terms of office).

As in Britain or France, day to day government is carried out by a Cabinet, the

members of which are formally appointed by the President but in practice chosen
by the Chancellor.
Since Germany has a system of proportional representation for the election of its
lower house, no one party wins an absolute majority of the seats and all German
governments are therefore coalitions. Following the federal election in 2013, it
took almost three months to form a new government. Unusually this was a
coalition of the two major parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social
Democrats (SPD) - what the Germans call "Große Koalition" or simply "GroKo".

Following the federal election of September 2017, the Social Democrats initially
insisted that they would not serve in a government, so the CDU/CSU tied to form a
coalition with other smaller parties in order to secure a majority in the Bundestag.
Negotiations took place over months in an attempt - which has failed - to form a
"Jamaica alliance", so-called because the colours of the three intended partners -
the CDU/CSU, the FDP and the Greens - are the colours that make up the
Jamaican flag.

This forced the two major parties to negotiate another GroKo. After almost six
months of uncertainty - the longest the country has been without a government in
postwar history- an agreement was reached in March 2018 and subsequently
endorsed in a ballot of SPD members. The price of this deal is that the Social
Democrats take control of the finance, foreign and labour ministries. The CSU has
the interior ministry.

THE BUNDESTAG

The lower house in the German political system is the Bundestag. Its members are elected for
four-year terms. The method of election is known as mixed member proportional representation
(MMPR), a more complicated system than first-past-post but one which gives a more
proportional result (a variant of this system known as the additional member system is used for
the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly).

Half of the members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies using the
first-past-the post method of election. Then the other half - another 299 - are elected from the
lists of the parties on the basis of each Land (the 16 regions that make up Germany). This means
that each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote allows voters to
elect their local representatives to the Parliament and decides which candidates are sent to
Parliament from the constituencies. The second vote is cast for a party list and it is this second
vote that determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag. So each
Land or state has a given number of directly elected members and each party in each Land has a
list which determines the order of selection of any members chosen as a result of the application
of the second vote.

The second-vote seats seats are only distributed among the parties that have gained more than
5% of the second votes or at least 3 direct mandates. Each of these parties is allocated seats in the
Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received. This system is designed to block
membership of the Bundestag to small, extremist parties. As a consequence, there are always a
small number of parties with representation in the Bundestag - currently the figure is only seven
(and effectively the CDU and the CSU are the same party).

There was a problem with the electoral system, however. Many voters "split" their ballots, voting
for a candidate from one party with their first vote and for a different party with their second.
The directly elected candidates (known as direct mandates) entered the Bundestag, but a given
party might then have more candidates than its share of the second votes would imply - known as
"Überhangmandate" or "overhang mandates". This also meant that the Bundestag swelled from
its theoretical size of 598 seats to 620. In 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that this was unfair
and unconstitutional.

So, in 2016, a new system was finally agreed. If direct mandates for any party exceed its second-
vote ratio, then all the other parties get compensated so that the ratios again reflect the second
votes exactly - so-called "Ausgleichmandate". In practice, that could make the Bundestag bigger
again, with perhaps more than 700 seats. Crucially, it also hurts one party by withdrawing an
advantage it has enjoyed in the past: most of the excess direct mandates went to the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU). As a result, the CDU is likely to fare worse under the new system
than it would have done under the previous system. A further conequence of this system is that
every new legislative period begins with a construction crew moving, removing or adding seats
on the plenary floor in the Reichstag.

One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the American Congress or the
British House of Commons is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. In part,
that difference results from the fact that only 50% of Bundestag members are directly elected to
represent a specific geographic district. In part, it is because constituency service seems not to be
perceived, either by the electorate or by the representatives, as a critical function of the legislator
and a practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of
Bundestag members (especially compared to members of the US Congress).

Traditionally proceedings in the Bundestag have been conducted respectfully in contrast to many
other legislatures around the world - but the result of the last federal election and the formation
of a new grand coalition may change things somewhat. The Alternative for Germany, a noisy
nationalist, Right-wing party, has now become the official opposition, while the coalition deal
between the CDU and the SPD commits the government to a number of new debating formats,
including a triannual Westminister-style "Chancellor's Question Time" of one hour in which the
head of the government has to field questions from the opposition. So the Bundestag is likely to
hear a more robost tone from its members.

The Bundestag elects the Chancellor for a four-year term and it is the main legislative body.

The last federal election was held on 24 September 2017 and the next election to the Bundestag
will be in Autumn 2021 (there is a permissable window of two months). Voting is held on a
Sunday.
THE BUNDESRAT

The upper house in the German political system is the Bundesrat.

At first glance, the composition of the Bundesrat looks similar to other upper houses in federal
states such as the US Congress since the Bundestag is a body representing all the German Länder
(or regional states). However, there are two fundamental differences in the German system:

1. Its members are not elected, neither by popular vote nor by the state parliaments, but are
members of the state cabinets which appoint them and can remove them at any time.
Normally, a state delegation is headed by the head of government in that Land known in
Germany as the Minister-President.
2. The states are not represented by an equal number of delegates, since the population of
the respective state is a major factor in the allocation of votes (rather than delegates) to
each particular Land. The votes allocation can be approximated as 2.01 + the square root
of the Land's population in millions with the additional limit of a maximum of six votes
so that it is consistent with something called the Penrose method based on game theory.
This means that the 16 states have between three and six delegates.

This unusual method of composition provides for a total of 69 votes (not seats) in the Bundesrat.
The state cabinet then may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, but is under no
obligation to do so; it can restrict the state delegation even to one single delegate. The number of
members or delegates representing a particular Land does not matter formally since, in stark
contrast to many other legislative bodies, the delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are
required to cast the votes of the state as a bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective
delegate). This means that in practice it is possible (and quite customary) that only one of the
delegates (the Stimmführer or "leader of the votes" - normally the Minister-President) casts all
the votes of the respective state, even if the other members of the delegation are present in the
chamber.

Even with a full delegate appointment of 69, the Bunsderat is a much smaller body that the
Bundestag with over 600 members. It is unusual for the two chambers of a bicameral system to
be quite so unequal in size.

The Bundesrat has the power to veto legislation that affects the powers of the states

POLITICAL PARTIES

Like many countries - including Britain, France, and the USA - Germany has two major party
groupings, one Centre-Right and the other Centre-Left.

The Centre-Right grouping comprises two political parties that operate in different parts of the
country so that there is no direct electoral competition between them. The Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) operates in all the Länder except Bavaria, while the Christian Social Union (CSU)
operates only in Bavaria. These parties are most popular among rural, older, conservative and
Christan voters. The CDU is led by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (known as AKK), while the
CSU is led by Horst Seehofer. In the federal election of September 2017, the CDU/CSU
grouping won the largest number of seats: 246.

The Centre-Left party is the Social Democratic Party (SPD in German). This the oldest party in
Germany and it is strongest in industrial western Germany. In the last federal election, it only
won 153 seats which was the poorest result for the party since 1949. Following a particular bad
performance in the European Parliament elections of May 2019, the leader resigned. A
replacement leadership was only chosen in December 2019: Nobert Walter-Borjans and Saskia
Esken - the first time that the party has had joint leaders.

In the federal election of September 2017, more parties secured representation in the Bundestag
than at any time since the introduction of the 5% hurdle in 1953. The other parties now
represented in the Bundestag are:

 The Alternative for Germany (in German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) which is far
Right, Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant. It is led by Jörg Meuthen and Alexander Gauland
and won 94 seats. Since the CDU/CSU and the SPD have agreed to form another grand
coalition, the AfD is now largest opposition party in the Bundestag.
 The Free Democratic Party (FDP) which is pro-business. It is led by Christian Lindner
and gained 80 seats.
 The Left Party which is built on the former Communist Party and is strongest in the
former East Germany. It is led by Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger and took 69 seats
 The Green Party which is popular in West Germany's university cities. It is led by Katrin
Gðring-Eckardt and has 67 seats.

The electoral system in the German political system means that coalition governments are very
common. The Social Democratic Party was in coalition with the Greens - the Red/Green
coalition - from 1998-2005 and then, from 2005-2009, there was a 'grand coalition' between the
CDU/CSU and the SPD. Between 2009-2013, the CDU/CSU was in a coalition with the FDP. In
the election of 2013, the FDP failed to win representation in the Bundestag, so Germany went
back to a 'grand coalition'.Unusually political parties in Germany receive significant public funds
and the costs of election campaigns are substantially met from the public purse.

THE JUDICIARY

Germany's supreme court is called the Federal Constitutional Court and its role is essentially as
guardian of the constitution. There are 16 judges divided between two panels called Senates,
each holding office for a non-renewable term of 12 years. Half the judges are elected by the
Bundestag and half by the Bundesrat, in both cases by a two-thirds majority. Once appointed, a
judge can only be removed by the Court itself.

Whereas the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have moved from Bonn to Berlin, the Constitutional
Court is located in Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

THE LÄNDER
During the initial occupation of Germany after the Second World War, the territory in each
Occupation Zone was re-organized into new Länder (singular Land) to prevent any one Land
from ever dominating Germany (as Prussia had done). Later the Länder in the western part of the
former German Reich were constituted as administrative areas first and subsequently federated
into the Bund or Federal Republic of Germany.

Today, following the reunification of Germany, there are 16 Länder in the German political
system. The cities of Berlin and Hamburg are states in their own right, termed Stadtstaaten (city
states), while Bremen consists of two urban districts. The remaining 13 states are
termed Flächenländer (area states).

The Basic Law accords significant powers to the 16 Länder. Furthermore there is a strong system
of state courts.

Each Land has a unicameral assembly or parliament called the Landtag. The election period in
the various Länder is generally four to five years and the dates of elections vary from state to
state.

Politics at the state level often carries implications for federal politics. Opposition victories in
elections for state parliaments, which take place throughout the federal government's four-year
term, can weaken the federal government because state governments have assigned seats in the
Bundesrat.

CONCLUSION

Like all political systems, the German one has its strengths and weaknesses.

The great strength of the system - a deliberate feature of the post-war constitution - is the
consensual nature of its decision-making processes. The Bundesrat serves as a control
mechanism on the Bundestag. Since the executive and legislative functions are closely
intertwined in any parliamentary system, the Bundesrat's ability to revisit and slow down
legislative processes could be seen as making up for that loss of separation.

On the other hand, it can be argued that the system makes decision-making opaque. Some
observers claim that the opposing majorities in the two chambers lead to an increase in backroom
politics where small groups of high-level leaders make all the important decisions and then the
Bundestag representatives only have a choice between agreeing with them or not getting
anything done at all.

What is undeniable is that post-war Germany has shown remarkable political stability. The CDU
has provided Germany with a chancellor for 50 of the last 70 years and in all there have only
been eight chancellors in that period (if one excludes an acting chancellor who only served nine
days). Social cohesion and economic prosperity have characterised German society.

However, Germany is increasingly a changing nation demographically and in 2015 alone some
one million extra migrants entered the country. It is now a society in which one in five has a
"migration background" as German bureaucratic jargon calls all those with foreign roots. The
number and nature of these immigrants are having a growing impact on German political
thinking.

Meanwhile, since the current political system was designed in 1949, Germany's economic and
political role in the world has changed considerably and 2015 was the 25th anniversary of the
reunification of the nation. On the one hand, Germans themselves need to take on board these
changes by rethinking the current pacifistic approach to world affairs and accepting that the
Germany military has a role to play in international peace-keeping. On the other hand, the global
community needs to accept Germany's powerful role in world affairs by giving the country a
permanent seat in the Security Council of the United Nations.

As former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has put it, Germany is "too big for
Europe, too small for the world".