All Germany Election Case
Germany Federal Constitutional Court
82 BVerfGE 322 (1990)
- Written by Mary Katherine Cunningham, JD
Facts
After the reunification of West Germany and East Germany in 1989, the newly reunified Federal Republic of Germany gained several new political parties. Article 21 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany stated that political parties could be freely established if the party’s organization conformed to democratic principles. Article 21 further provided that federal laws could regulate the political parties. The federal government enacted a barrier clause, requiring all political parties to receive at least 5 percent of the vote before receiving parliamentary representation in the 1990 federal election. Certain East German political parties were unable to satisfy this condition imposed by the federal barrier clause because these political parties lacked the possibility to present themselves to the entirety of the newly reunified Federal Republic of Germany. Furthermore, the political parties from East Germany lacked the time to form political alliances with more established parties in West Germany before the election. These political parties were therefore excluded from parliamentary representation in the first election following the reunification of Germany. The excluded political parties filed a lawsuit challenging their exclusion from the election as a violation of Article 21.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Per curiam)
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