German court dismisses AfD lawsuits over Bundestag committee chairs

Germany's Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed a complaint by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) over its exclusion from chairing committees in parliament.

The judgement concerns two lawsuits filed by the party's parliamentary group, which has 77 of 733 seats in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house.

Judge Doris König, the vice president of the Karlsruhe-based court, explained that the rules governing the selection and removal of committee chairs fall within the Bundestag's remit.

The AfD had submitted a complaint after traditional parties collaborated to exclude its lawmakers from chairing three committees - on health, internal affairs and development - in the Bundestag in the wake of the 2021 election.

Bundestag committees are reconstituted in each legislative period. Typically, the nomination of committee chairs is negotiated in the Council of Elders - a panel of some two dozen high-ranking and veteran lawmakers.

If no agreement is reached, as after the parliamentary election in September 2021 that put Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the top office, an order of precedence for allocation is calculated based on the strength of the parliamentary groups.

This resulted in the AfD obtaining the three chairs, but opposition from other parties forced votes which saw the far-right candidates lose. As a result, the deputy chairs are currently leading the committees.

The second lawsuit addressed the removal of AfD lawmaker Stephan Brandner from the chairmanship of the Legal Affairs Committee in November 2019.

The AfD argued that their rights to equal treatment as a parliamentary group and to the fair application of the Bundestag's procedural rules were violated, but the court has now rejected the complaint.