Andreas Voßkuhle | |
|---|---|
_by_Sandro_Halank.jpg) Voßkuhle in 2016 | |
| President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany | |
| In office 16 March 2010 – 22 June 2020 | |
| Vice-President |
|
| Nominated by | SPD |
| Appointed by | Bundestag |
| Preceded by | Hans-Jürgen Papier |
| Succeeded by | Stephan Harbarth |
| Vice-President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany | |
| In office 7 May 2008 – 16 March 2010 | |
| President | |
| Nominated by | SPD |
| Appointed by | Bundesrat |
| Preceded by | Winfried Hassemer |
| Succeeded by | Ferdinand Kirchhof |
| Judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany for theSecond Senate | |
| In office 7 May 2008 – 22 June 2020 | |
| Nominated by | SPD |
| Appointed by | Bundesrat |
| Preceded by | Winfried Hassemer |
| Succeeded by | Astrid Wallrabenstein |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1963-12-21)21 December 1963 (age 61) |
| Spouse | Eva Voßkuhle |
| Alma mater | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich |
| Occupation |
|
Andreas Voßkuhle (born 21 December 1963) is a German legal scholar who served as the president of theFederal Constitutional Court of Germany from 2010 until 2020.
Voßkuhle was born and grew up in the small Western German city ofDetmold, where his father was a lawyer specializing inadministrative law.[1] Baptized intoLippische Landeskirche, one of Germany's fewReformedmember churches. He started studying law at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich and theUniversity of Bayreuth between 1983 and 1989. In 1989 he passed the firstStaatsexamen. Before he completed the second Staatsexamen in 1993 he wrote hisdoctoral thesis (German titleRechtsschutz gegen den Richter [Legal protection against the judge]) under supervision ofPeter Lerche.
Between 1992 and 1994, Voßkuhle was aresearch fellow at the chair for public law inAugsburg. Later, in 1995, he worked as a referent in the Ministry of the Interior of theFree State of Bavaria. Following his habilitation at theUniversity of Augsburg in 1998, he became a full professor at theUniversity of Freiburg in 1999 as well as the head of their institute for political science and the philosophy of law. Additionally, he held various positions including faculty director of the law faculty.
Since 2007 he is also an ordinary member of theBerlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Later, in July 2007, he became the head of the University of Freiburg as well. He started to work in this position in April 2008.
In May 2008, Voßkuhle became the vice-president of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and the chairman of its second senate. He was the second choice of theSPD, after their initial candidate,Horst Dreier, was rejected by theCDU because of his position regardingstem cell research andtorture.[2] When the mandate of the former President of the Court,Hans-Jürgen Papier ended in 2010, Voßkuhle became the youngest President in the history of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.
In February 2012,ChancellorAngela Merkel offered Voßkuhle the opportunity to succeedChristian Wulff asPresident of Germany, after the president's resignation. He later declined the offer.[1]
The term of office of a judge on the Federal Constitutional Court is 12 years and cannot be extended. Therefore, his term ended in June 2020.[3][4]
Since 2022, following an appointment byChancellorOlaf Scholz, Voßkuhle has been serving on a three-member panel (alongsideNorbert Lammert andKrista Sager) to assess potentialconflicts of interest, requiring senior German officials from the chancellor to deputy ministers to observe a cooling-off period if they want toquit the government for a job in business.[5]
AfterNorbert Lammert, thePresident of the Bundestag, criticized the court's 2009 ruling on theTreaty of Lisbon, Voßkuhle wrote in an essay for the daily newspaperSüddeutsche Zeitung that Lammert's statements were "strong words for a non-lawyer" and hardly served to "foster a culture of respect." Lammert eventually came around and upon "second reading" declared the court's ruling "a brilliant legal concept."[1]
He is married. His wife is Eva Voßkuhle. They do not have any children.[6]
Media related toAndreas Voßkuhle at Wikimedia Commons
