Majority of professors

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The majority of professors (also the majority of university teachers ) designates a constitutional institute created by the Federal Constitutional Court , which the court developed on the occasion of the university ruling on the group universities of 1973. If the organizational form of the group university is chosen at German universities, the following tripartite requirement structure results for the decision-making in the self-governing bodies, which must be taken into account by the legislator when structuring the university organization:

  1. All decisions at a university that do not affect teaching and research can be made equally by the university members.
  2. In addition, in the case of decisions that affect teaching, the group of university lecturers must be given at least half of the votes.
  3. The BVerfG made the highest demands on decisions that directly affect research. The university lecturers must have an absolute majority of the votes, for example in appointment procedures .

The court justifies the majority of professors with the need to protect the functionality of science. The judgment based on the freedom of scholarship from Article 5, Paragraph 3, Clause 1 of the Basic Law and Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law makes the homogeneity of the group a prerequisite. This required homogeneity has been questioned in legal literature since the junior professorship was introduced at the beginning of the 21st century. In addition, it is questioned that the academic mid-level staff contributes to the endangerment of the functionality, as they also take on not inconsiderable tasks in research and teaching.

In the case of private universities , the need for a professors majority is not accepted.

literature

  • Lukas C. Gundling: Majority of Professors: A Sacrosanct Institute of Constitutional Law? . In: Landes- und Kommunalverwaltung 7/2016, pp. 301–304.
  • Gerrit Hellmuth Stumpf: Internal Organization and Inter-Organ Relationships at Universities - How Resistant to Change is the Professors' Majority? . In: Public Administration 15/2017, pp. 620–629.
  • Alexander Kübler-Kreß: The majority of university teachers at private universities - compulsory or optional? In: Ordinance of Science 2/2019, pp. 111–118.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shown as such at z. B. Lukas C. Gundling: Majority of Professors: A Sacrosanct Institute of Constitutional Law? , LKV 7/2016, p. 302.
  2. BVerfGE , Volume 35, p. 79, here p. 129. ( online )
  3. BVerfGE, Volume 35, p. 79, principle 8b and p. 130 f.
  4. BVerfGE, Volume 35, p. 79, guiding principle 8c and p. 131f .; also Bernhard Kempen : Basic questions of institutional university law , in Hartmer / Detmer (ed.): University law. A manual for practice, 2nd edition, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8114-7724-7 , Rn. 126.
  5. BVerfGE, Volume 35, p. 79, here p. 130 and 133.
  6. Werner Thieme : German University Law , 3rd Edition, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-452-24763-5 , p. 111.
  7. Lukas C. Gundling: A legal policy statement on the majority of professors - alternative scientific majority. Supplementary note on LKV 2016, 301. At the same time, comments on the decisions BVerfGE 139, 148 and VerfGH BW 1 VB 16/15 , in: Zeitschrift für Landesverfassungsrecht und Landesverwaltungsrecht (ZLVR), 2/2017, p. 50 ff.
  8. Lukas C. Gundling: Majority of Professors: A Sacrosanct Institute of Constitutional Law? , LKV 7/2016, p. 303 f.
  9. Alexander Kübler-Kreß: The majority of university teachers at private universities - compulsory or optional? In: Order of Science 2/2019, p. 116.