"Sharpest sword": CDU/CSU threatens Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt with Karlsruhe lawsuits
CDU and CSU parliamentary leaders from Lower Saxony, Bavaria and Thuringia want to take laws of a Left-led government in Berlin and an AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt to the Constitutional Court if necessary.
Archive image · Photo: Kasa Fue / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
The conservative Union in the German states is positioning itself against possible new governments in Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt. In a joint statement, parliamentary group leaders Sebastian Lechner (CDU, Lower Saxony), Klaus Holetschek (CSU, Bavaria) and Andreas Bühl (CDU, Thuringia) announced they would use all legal means to stop laws they consider unconstitutional. Union-led state governments are to file so-called abstract judicial review requests with the Federal Constitutional Court. Die Welt first reported the move.
For Berlin, the Union politicians point to the exploratory agreement between the Left, SPD and Greens: new borrowing beyond the limits of the debt brake, voting rights for foreigners, the planned socialisation of large housing portfolios and a possible weakening of the domestic intelligence service and the police. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD's announced abolition of compulsory schooling raises constitutional questions, they say; the Union also fears the intelligence service could be weakened or abolished.
"Judicial review is the sharpest sword we have in the federal rule of law," said Holetschek, who floated a corresponding motion in the Bavarian state parliament. Lechner, who chairs the conference of Union group leaders, stressed: "Responsibility for our constitutional order begins with the choice of political partners." Coalition talks have not been concluded in either state; whether lawsuits follow depends on the laws actually passed.