by John Lawrence
From operationworld.org
The Constitution of Germany is called the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany and went into effect in 1949 after World War II. When Germany became reunited a series of amendments went into effect and the result was the Unification Treaty that became the Constitution of the reunited Germany.
The authors of the Basic Law sought to ensure that a potential dictator would never again have the chance to come into power in the country. Although some of the Basic Law is based on the Weimar republic constitution, the authors also ensured that human rights and human dignity were made central and core parts of the Basic Law. The principles of democracy, republicanism, social responsibility, and federalism are key components of the Basic Law; the principles underlying these articles are constitutionally entrenched; and, although several of these articles have since been reworded, extended or refined, they are barred from being removed or repealed by the normal amendment process.
The Basic Law established Germany as a parliamentary democracy with separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
The executive branch consists of the largely ceremonial Federal President as head of state and the Federal Chancellor, the head of government, normally (but not necessarily) the leader of the largest grouping in the Bundestag.
The legislative branch is represented by the Bundestag, elected directly through a mixture of proportional representation and direct mandates, with the German Länder (the 16 federal subdivisions of Germany) participating in legislation through the Bundesrat (a Federal Council representing the 16 German states at the national level), reflecting Germany's federal structure.
The judicial branch is headed by the Federal Constitutional Court, which oversees the constitutionality of laws.
The Chancellor is the head of the cabinet and oversees the operations of the ministers of the cabinet.
The main body of the legislative branch is Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, which enacts federal legislation, including the budget. Each member of the Bundestag has the right to initiate legislation, as do the cabinet and the Bundesrat. The Bundestag also elects the Chancellor, the head of government, usually (but not necessarily) the leader of the majority party or the party with a plurality of seats in the Bundestag, and takes part in the election of the Federal President.
Hitler exploited deficiencies in the Weimar Constitution in order to take power and form the Third Reich. The present Constitution takes great pains to prevent anything like this happening again.
Article 79 states the Basic Law may be amended by an absolute two-thirds majority of the Bundestag along with a simple two-thirds majority of the Bundesrat. Such a vote may not remove any of the principles underlying articles 1 to 20, as defined by the eternity clause, but may clarify, extend or refine those principles.
The German Federal Election System regulates the election of the members of the national parliament, called Bundestag. According to the principles governing the elections laws, set down in Art. 38 of German Basic Law, elections are to be universal, direct, free, equal, and secret. Furthermore, the German Basic Law stipulates that Bundestag elections are to take place every four years and that one can vote, and be elected, upon reaching the age of 18. All other stipulations for the federal elections are regulated by the Federal Electoral Act. Elections always take place on a Sunday. Mail votes are possible upon application.
Germans elect their members of parliament with two votes. One vote is for a direct candidate, who ought to receive a plurality vote in their election district. The second vote (considered as more important) is to elect a party list in each province as established by its respective party caucus. Half of the Bundestag is then filled with candidates that won their electoral districts by the first votes and the other half by candidates from the party lists according roughly to the proportion the parties receive from the second votes according to a complex mathematical formula. Common practice is that direct candidates are also placed on the electoral lists at higher rankings as a fall-back if they do not win their districts.
German voting goes district by district. Voters do not vote for candidates outside their district. There are 299 constituencies or districts at the present time. So 299 seats in the Bundestag go to whomever wins according to majority rule in each district. The second vote is for a party list compiled on a regional basis. Proportional representation is used to allocate the remaining 598 seats according to the percentage of the votes that each party received.
The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, is elected according to the principle of proportional representation. In some cases, this system is also referred to as mixed member proportional representation. This, however, is incorrect considering the fact that the mandates gained directly in each federal state are compared to the number of second vote mandates and any differences are compensated with candidates from the party’s list at the state level, if, according to the principle of proportional representation, a party gains more second vote mandates than direct mandates. Therefore, it is more accurate to call it additional member system. However, the so-called mixing election system can be described as parallel voting whereas a certain number of representatives is elected through one of the systems and the other independent representatives are elected through the other system without any mandates being taken over by both of the systems.
Voting for the Bundestag is complicated. In particular, the importance of the second vote is sometimes underestimated. However, the voting system combines many of the advantages of both the plurality and the proportional voting system. Time has proven that this voting system mainly allows for a proportional distribution of seats, stable governments, change of governments, the possibility of new parties joining the parliament, and in comparison to the Reichstag, the precursor parliament of the Bundestag in the Weimar Republic, it allows for a parliament capable of acting. Presently, the big parties are not considering introducing a majority voting system like they did at the beginning of the first grand coalition in 1966.