constitutional complaint

noun · Verfassungsbeschwerde

Verfassungsbeschwerde, the individual complaint to the Bundesverfassungsgericht that anyone may bring over a rights violation by public power, Art. 93 Abs. 1 Nr. 4a GG, but only after exhausting the ordinary courts and within a short deadline, and it can even challenge a statute.

Which translation, when

Verfassungsbeschwerdethe complaint to the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe that anyone may bring who claims a Grundrecht was violated by public power, Art. 93 Abs. 1 Nr. 4a GG, reaching acts of all three branches, a court judgment, an administrative act, even a statute.

Zulässigkeitthe admissibility hurdles that defeat most complaints: the ordinary legal route must first be exhausted and the subsidiarity principle satisfied, § 90 Abs. 2 BVerfGG, and the complaint must be filed within one month of a decision or one year against a statute, § 93 BVerfGG.

Why

Constitutional complaint is Verfassungsbeschwerde, and it has no real English equivalent because the UK has no constitutional court hearing individual rights complaints. Under Art. 93 Abs. 1 Nr. 4a GG and §§ 90 following BVerfGG, anyone who claims that public power has violated one of their Grundrechte may complain to the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe, and the complaint can be directed at any act of the state, including a court judgment and, remarkably to a UK lawyer, a statute itself, which the court can declare void. But it is an extraordinary remedy and subsidiary. Section 90 Abs. 2 BVerfGG requires the ordinary legal route to be exhausted first, and the wider subsidiarity principle asks the complainant to have used every reasonable means before Karlsruhe; § 93 BVerfGG imposes a short deadline, one month from a decision or one year against a statute. Judicial review is not the counterpart: it reviews administrative action, not a rights complaint to a constitutional court, and it cannot strike down primary legislation. So rendering constitutional complaint as Verfassungsbeschwerde is right, but carrying the procedure of judicial review across, its forum, its time limits, its scope, gets the German route wrong.

Typical mistakes

The Verfassungsbeschwerde is subsidiary: the ordinary courts must be exhausted first, § 90 Abs. 2 BVerfGG, so filing it in place of the ordinary route, as if it were a first port of call, makes it inadmissible.
The deadline is short and specific, one month against a decision and one year against a statute, § 93 BVerfGG, not the judicial-review clock, so applying the wrong limit forfeits it.
It goes to the Bundesverfassungsgericht and can challenge a statute, which judicial review cannot, so equating the two mistakes both the forum and the reach.

What matters

Planning to challenge a German measure on rights grounds, the route is a Verfassungsbeschwerde to Karlsruhe, but only after the ordinary courts are exhausted, § 90 Abs. 2 BVerfGG, and within the month-or-year deadline, § 93 BVerfGG. Treating it like judicial review, wrong forum, wrong clock, and assuming a statute cannot be touched, misstates the remedy.

Authority

Art. 93 GG
§ 90 BVerfGG
§ 93 BVerfGG

What the machine misses

Machine output renders constitutional complaint as Verfassungsbeschwerde, then describes it in judicial-review terms. It misses that the remedy is subsidiary and needs the ordinary courts exhausted first, § 90 Abs. 2 BVerfGG, that its deadline is a strict one month or one year, § 93 BVerfGG, and that it goes to the Bundesverfassungsgericht and can strike down a statute. The rendering carries an English procedure that does not fit.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

to lodge a constitutional complaint	eine Verfassungsbeschwerde erheben
the constitutional complaint is admissible	die Verfassungsbeschwerde ist zulässig
a constitutional complaint against a statute	eine Verfassungsbeschwerde gegen ein Gesetz
the constitutional complaint was not accepted	die Verfassungsbeschwerde wurde nicht angenommen