Law on the election of the Federal President by the Federal Assembly

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Basic data
Title: Law on the election of the Federal President by the Federal Assembly
Abbreviation: BPäsWahlG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Constitutional law
References : 1100-1
Issued on: April 25, 1959
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 230 )
Entry into force on: April 30, 1959
Last change by: Art. 1 G of July 12, 2007
( BGBl. I p. 1326 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		July 20, 2007
(Art. 2 G of July 12, 2007)
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Law on the choice of the President by the Federal Assembly (BPräsWahlG) controls embodying law to Art. 54 Basic Law (GG) the details of the selection of the German head of state, in departure from the popular vote of the President according to Art. 41, para. 1 Weimar Constitution a specifically and only to be convened body, the Federal Assembly , is assigned. The law was published in the Federal Law Gazette on April 29, 1959 and came into force the following day.

Article 54 of the Basic Law

Any German who has the right to vote in the Bundestag and who has reached the age of forty can be elected President .

The office of Federal President lasts five years. Subsequent re-election is only permitted once. It is controversial whether a third term of office would be permitted after an interruption.

The election takes place without discussion by the Federal Assembly. This consists of

  • the members of the Bundestag and
  • an equal number of members who are elected by the parliament of the federal states , the state parliaments, according to the principles of proportional representation.

The Federal Assembly meets no later than thirty days before the end of the term of office of the Federal President, and in the case of premature termination no later than thirty days after this point in time. It is convened by the President of the Bundestag .

Whoever receives the votes of the majority of the members of the Federal Assembly is elected. If this majority is not achieved by any of the applicants in two ballots, the person who receives the most votes in a further ballot is elected.

Regulations of the law

The federal government determines in good time how many members the individual state parliaments have to elect for the federal assembly. This is based on the statutory number of members of the Bundestag at the time the Federal Government adopted a resolution and the ratio of the last official population figures of the federal states. Foreigners are not taken into account ( Section 2, Paragraph 1 of the BPäsWahlG). The state parliaments then elect the members from each state according to lists of proposals. Each MP has one vote. If there are several nomination lists, the seats are allocated to the lists according to the number of votes they have received in the d'Hondt maximum number procedure ( § 4 BPäsWahlG). The elected do not necessarily have to be MPs; however, they must have the right to stand as a candidate for election to the German Bundestag ( Section 3 BPäsWahlG). They enjoy immunity, the right to refuse to testify and protection against dismissal like the members of the Bundestag under Art. 46 , Art. 47 and Art. 48 Paragraph 2 GG ( § 7 BPäsWahlG) and receive compensation in accordance with the provisions applicable to members of the Bundestag ( § 12 BPäsWahlG).

The President of the German Bundestag is responsible for convening and chairing the Federal Assembly ( § 1 , § 8 BPäsWahlG). Every member of the Federal Assembly can - even in the second or third ballot - submit nominations to the President of the Bundestag; the written declaration of consent of the proposed person must be attached. The meeting committee checks whether the nominations meet the legal requirements. The Federal Assembly decides on the rejection of an election proposal. The election takes place in secret “with hidden official ballot papers. Ballot papers made out to persons other than those named in the approved nominations are invalid ”( Section 9, Paragraphs 1 to 3 of the Federal Presidential Election Act).

The President of the Bundestag informs the elected member of the election and asks him to explain to him within two days whether he will accept the election. If the elected does not make a declaration within this period, the election is deemed rejected. The President of the Bundestag declares the Federal Assembly to be over after the elected person has accepted the election ( Section 9, Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Federal Presidential Election Act ). Finally, it causes the Federal President to take the oath before the assembled members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat ( § 11 BPäsWahlG, Art. 56 GG).

In the event of a subsequent re-election, no further swearing-in is required. Art. 56 GG prescribes it only for the “assumption of office”, and such is not seen in the continuation of office after re-election.

literature

  • Beate Braun: The Federal Assembly . Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-631-45601-8 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ It replaced the second part of the electoral law for the second Bundestag and the Federal Assembly of July 8, 1953. This was preceded by the electoral law for the first Bundestag and the first Federal Assembly , which the Parliamentary Council had passed on May 10, 1949. With the changes made by the military governors, it was announced in the Federal Law Gazette of June 15, 1949 by the Prime Ministers of the Länder on their orders.
  2. ↑ The election laws of 1949 and 1953 had not yet provided for such a restriction of the election to approved nominations, so that in the 1954 election a. a. a valid single vote could be cast for Karl Dönitz , who was convicted in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals . The requirement to attach the nominee's written declaration of consent to the nomination is a reaction to Alfred Weber's nomination by the KPD in the 1954 election, which took place without his consent and which Prof. Weber described as an abuse of his name.
  3. ↑ "According to Section 10 of the Election Code, the office of the Federal President begins at the end of the term of office of his predecessor, but not before the declaration of acceptance of the new Federal President has been received by the President of the BTag ... within two days of the election ... There is no further formal act for the beginning of the term of office , such as the appointment by handing over a certificate of appointment required. ”Dieter C. Umbach in Basic Law: Employee Commentary (Ed. Umbach / Clemens), CF Müller Verlag Heidelberg 2002, Vol. II Art. 54 Rn 36 Page 322 Likewise Basic Law Commentary by Maunz / Dürig (1958): "According to the GG and the law on the election of the Federal President, neither the establishment nor the beginning of the office of the Federal President is dependent on the presentation of a certificate of appointment."
  4. ^ As with Theodor Heuss 1954, Heinrich Lübke 1964, Richard von Weizsäcker 1989 and Horst Köhler 2009