INFORME DE EVALUACIÓN DEL COMITÉ DE CERTIFICACIÓN INTERNA CERTIFICACIÓN INTERNA.

Unfortunately, the Bundesverfassungsgericht decided already very early on to follow the more traditional approach. In two seminal decisions in 1952, the Court opted to al- locate the competence to one power only, namely the executive, and relegated the legislative to control powers only which were largely political in nature.

The first case concerned the so-called Petersberg Agreement which was meant to ena- ble the then occupied Western Germany to participate in the activities aimed at creat- ing the first European communities. The second case concerned an agreement be- tween France and Western Germany on trade and financial transactions.315 In both cases, the Bundesregierung had concluded the negotiations with the Western Allies,

313

Eberhard Menzel, ‘Die Auswärtige Gewalt Der Bundesrepublik’ in Wilhelm Grewe and Eberhard Men- zel (eds), Die auswärtige Gewalt der Bundesrepublik (Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deut- schen Staatsrechtslehrer, Band 12, De Gruyter Verlag 1954) 192; Ernst Friesenhahn, ‘Parlament Und Regierung Im Modernen Staat’ in Ernst Friesenhahn and Karl Josef Partsch (eds), Parlament und Re-

gierung im modernen Staat/ Die Organisationsgewalt (Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deut-

schen Staatsrechtslehrer, Band 16, De Gruyter Verlag 1959) 37.

314

BVerfG, ‘Bremer Personalvertretung’ (n 235).

315

BVerfG, ‘Petersberger Abkommen’ (n 308); BVerfG, ‘Deutsch-Französisches Wirtschaftsabkommen’ [1952] BVerfGE 1, 372.

and the French government respectively, and then had the agreements published in the Federal Gazette without submitting them to a vote in the Bundestag. The Bundes-

tag’s opposition challenged this as a violation of the Bundestag’s rights under Article

59 (2). Both cases concerned matters arising under the statute regulating the powers of the Western Allied Forces for the purposes of the occupation (the so-called Be-

satzungsstatut) and thus dealt with very specific and rather untypical situations. Nev-

ertheless, the Court used this opportunity to set out its interpretation of Article 59 (2) in a detailed fashion, creating rules that govern the relationship of the Bundestag and the Bundesregierung in the area of Foreign Affairs to this day.

The Court dismissed both claims since neither treaty fell under the two alternatives laid out for consent requirements in Article 59 II – the Petersberg Agreement did not because it was a treaty with the occupying powers and thus not subject to the regular provisions of the Grundgesetz; and the Franco-German treaty did not because it was not a treaty that ‘regulate[d] the political relations of the Federation or relate[d] to

subjects of federal legislation’ for the purposes of Article 59 (2). With respect to the re-

lationship between the Bundestag and the Bundesregierung, the Court’s reasoning contains several statements that developed into recurring themes in the subsequent decades, so it is worth quoting them in full:

“… Article 59 Abs. 2 GG durch- bricht das Gewaltenteilungssystem insofern, als hier die Legislative in den Bereich der Exekutive übergreift. […] daß auch insoweit die Politik des Bundeskanzlers der parlamentari- schen Kontrolle unterliegt, die in ei- nem Mißtrauensvotum nach Article 67 GG gipfeln kann. …”

“… Article 59 (2) of the Basic Law deviates from the system of the sepa- ration of powers, in that the legisla- tive branch encroaches in the area of the executive branch. […] policy mak- ing by the Federal Chancellor is sub- ject to parliamentary control, which can culminate in a vote of no- confidence under Article 67 of the Basic Law…”316

“… In der parlamentarischen De- “… In a parliamentary democracy,

316

BVerfG, ‘Petersberger Abkommen’ (n 308) 369–370, emphasis added. Quoted after the translation available at <https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-

mokratie ist grundsätzlich dem Par- lament die Rechtsetzung vorbehalten und der Exekutive die Regierung und Verwaltung übertragen. Hierzu ge- hört auch die Führung der Außen- und Handelspolitik.[…] Der Bundestag

kann diese Funktion der Regierung nicht übernehmen, soweit ihm nicht

ausdrücklich Regierungsaufgaben zu- gewiesen sind. […] Nur weil im Article 59 Abs. 2 GG für die beiden Sonderfäl- le […] die Form des Gesetzes vorbe- halten ist, kann die Legislative durch Mitwirkung in dieser Form in die Tä- tigkeit der Exekutive eingreifen. Dar- über hinaus hat Article 59 Abs. 2 GG dem Bundestag kein Recht gegeben, in den Zuständigkeitsbereich der Re- gierung einzugreifen. Der Bundestag

bleibt auf die allgemeinen verfas- sungsmäßigen Kontrollmöglichkei- ten beschränkt. Er regiert und ver-

waltet nicht selbst, sondern er kon- trolliert die Regierung. Mißbilligt er deren Politik, so kann er dem Bundes- kanzler das Mißtrauen aussprechen (Article 67 GG) und dadurch die Re- gierung stürzen. Er kann aber nicht selbst die Politik führen. …“

legislation is basically reserved for parliament, with government and administration being assigned to the executive branch. To the latter be- longs also the conducting of foreign policy and trade policy. […] The Bun- destag is not able to assume this function of government unless it is expressly provided with such func- tions. […] Only because Article 59 (2) requires a law in the two special cas- es […] is the legislature able to inter- vene in executive activity by way of participation in the form of law mak- ing. Above and beyond this, Article 59 II has not given the Bundestag a right to intervene in the Government's zone of responsibility. It remains lim-

ited to the general constitutional powers of supervision; rather than it-

self governing and administering, it controls the Government. Should it disapprove of the latter's policies, it is empowered to express its lack of con- fidence in the Federal Chancellor (Ar- ticle 67 of the Basic Law) and bring down the Government. But it is not able to conduct policy making of its own accord. …”317

These statements contain in a very compacted fashion the base line of the Court’s past – and present – attitude in the area of Foreign Affairs: that according to the Grundge-

setz’s system of the separation of powers, Foreign Affairs had to be considered the ex-

clusive domain of the executive and any activity of the legislative in this context could only be seen as ‘encroaching’ on that domain. As a consequence, provisions allowing

317

BVerfG, ‘Deutsch-Französisches Wirtschaftsabkommen’ (n 315) 394–395. Quoted after the transla- tion available at <https://law.utexas.edu/transnational/foreign-law-

such encroachment – like Articles 24 and 59 (2) – have to be considered as exceptions to that rule and thus have to be interpreted very strictly so as to protect the rights of the executive.318 Instead of legal rights, the Court consistently refers the Bundestag to its political control rights such as plenary debates, question times, etc. and of course the ultimate weapon: the vote of no confidence.

Considering the rather sweeping nature of the statements above, it is very interesting to see that the Court does not provide any explanation as to why foreign policy should be the exclusive domain of the executive, why a broader interpretation of Article 59 II would create such an intolerable disturbance of the balance of power between execu- tive and legislative or why the shift of power in favour of the executive created by the broad discretion in turn does not present reason for concern with regard to the bal- ance between the two powers. Had such a question been asked in the domestic con- text, the cases reviewed in the previous Chapter illustrate that the Court would have reached a different conclusion.

Overall, this approach has to be considered rather executive-friendly as it leaves a lot of political decision-making power to the executive and relegates the legislative to ex- ercising an after-the-fact legal control and otherwise to having to rely on political means to carry out some measure of oversight over the activities of the executive. Thus, even though the Court provided a measure of procedural support to the opposi- tion, it created an atmosphere where the chances for a successful challenge against the executive’s actions appeared slim indeed. This stance has attracted considerable criticisms from the academic community and the opposition in the federal parliament has tried in numerous cases to change the Court’s mind. However, apart from very specific exceptions that will be discussed in Section B below, the Bundesverfas-

sungsgericht has kept to this line of reasoning to this day.