Candidate for Germany's top court steps aside after government fight

BERLIN (AFP) — A law professor who had been expected to join Germany’s top court said Thursday that she was no longer seeking the nomination after a bitter row over her candidacy shook the governing coalition.

Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, 54, had been proposed for a Constitutional Court seat by the center-left Social Democrats, the junior coalition partner, but faced strident opposition from within Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance.

Right-wing lawmakers accused her of having voiced overly liberal positions on questions around abortion and the Islamic headscarf, but she said much of the criticism was “defamatory and detached from reality.”

Her confirmation for the seat on the 16-member court was abruptly pulled from the parliamentary calendar last month when it became clear she lacked support within the CDU/CSU bloc of lawmakers.

The SPD defended her candidacy but the unseemly public spat over the issue became one of the first big disputes within Merz’s coalition, which took office in May.

Brosius-Gersdorf said Thursday that she was “no longer available as a candidate.”

“It was made clear to me by members of the CDU/CSU bloc in recent days and weeks — both publicly and privately — that my election was out of the question,” she said in a statement.

She said she wanted to “avoid the row within the coalition, worsening and setting in motion a train of events with unforeseeable consequences for democracy.”

The aborted vote last month was also meant to approve two other candidates to the court, whose nominations have also since been on ice.

Brosius-Gersdorf said that if she persisted in her candidacy, the whole process could unravel and that this “could endanger the other two candidates, whom I would like to protect.”

Much of the criticism was amplified by right-wing online media channels as well as more traditional outlets, some of which she accused of “slanderous journalism.”

SPD co-leader and Labour Minister Baerbel Bas told news magazine Der Spiegel she was deeply concerned “that right-wing networks have actually mounted a successful campaign against Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf.”

SPD Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said the “attacks” on the nominee had been “in no way acceptable.”

Alluding to the previous agreement within the government on her nomination, he said “those within the coalition who did not keep their word must urgently review what happened” and “such a situation must not be repeated.”

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By Agence France-Presse