Joachim Rottmann

Joachim Rottmann (born October 22, 1925 in Kassel ; † November 11, 2014 ) was a German lawyer. From 1971 to 1983 he was a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court .

Life

After his legal education Rottmann was initially 1954 to 1959 as an official in the police administration of Berlin and the Senator for Justice of Berlin as a government and senior civil servant and as a secondary occupation as a research assistant at the Institute of political theory , constitutional law and administrative law at the Free University of Berlin working . From 1959 to 1969 he was a civil servant in the Federal Ministry of Defense . In 1969 he moved to the Federal Ministry of the Interior , to which he was a ministerial director before being appointed judge of the Federal Constitutional Court .

In addition, Rottmann worked from 1965 to 1973 as a lecturer at the Universities of Bonn and Gießen . In 1983 he took up a position as honorary professor in Giessen .

After his appointment as judge of the Federal Constitutional Court until his retirement, Rottmann belonged to the Second Senate of the court. He was considered liberal, politically close to the social-liberal coalition.

In the context of the decision by the Federal Constitutional Court on the Basic Treaty, Bavaria twice questioned Rottmann's impartiality. The first application was rejected by the other judges of the second senate, but on the second, on July 31, 1973, Rottmann's bias was established. The decision was decided by the majority with considerations that completely differed from the previous decision on the question of Rottmann's bias and on the border between conservative and social liberal judges with 4: 3.

Rottmann became known to the general public through his dissenting vote on the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 16, 1983, which approved the dissolution of the German Bundestag by Federal President Karl Carstens and the establishment of the 1983 Bundestag election .

On November 17, 1983, Rottmann received the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to the state and the people .

literature

• 25 years of the Federal Constitutional Court: 1951–1976 , Heidelberg 1976, ISBN 3-8114-4976-1 , p. 56.

Web links

• Literature by and about Joachim Rottmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Press release No. 103/2005 of the Federal Constitutional Court of October 21, 2005 on the occasion of his 80th birthday
• Obituary notice at the General-Anzeiger (Bonn)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Maximilian Steinbeis: " Rottmanns Leiden or Textbook of the Right of Prejudice ," Verfassungsblog from November 27, 2014 (accessed November 28, 2014).
2. ↑ BVerfG, decision of May 29, 1973 - 2 BvQ 1/73 = BVerfGE 35, 171.