Germany's governing coalition has moved to strengthen the Federal Constitutional Court to better protect it from political influence, partly as a safeguard against the growing strength of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), sections of which have been deemed a threat to the constitutional order by intelligence agencies.

Presenting his reform plans in Berlin on Tuesday, Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) was joined by parliamentarians from the center-left Social Democrats and Greens, as well as the main opposition center-right Christian Democrats.

According to the plans jointly hashed out by the above parties, the number of judges (16) and the unique term of office of twelve years should be enshrined in the Basic Law, meaning that any future change to the regulation would require a two-thirds majority in the parliament, the Bundestag. rather than the current simple majority.

The selection of judges is also to be reformed: If a particular judge should be blocked for six months by the Bundestag, the other chamber of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, which represents the 16 federal states, will be able to vote on the candidate. This would theoretically prevent any party from being able to block a judge indefinitely.

"The Federal Constitutional Court is a shield for fundamental rights, but its own shield needs to be more resilient," Buschmann said in a statement. "It was time to close this remarkable discrepancy between the importance of the Federal Constitutional Court on the one hand and its lack of constitutional protection on the........

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