The unsuccessful candidate for the Federal Constitutional Court, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, has described the period surrounding her nomination as “existential” and likened it to “a kind of state of emergency”. In an interview with the German weekly magazine “Die Zeit”, the legal scholar detailed a deeply challenging experience marked by public scrutiny and what she perceived as misinformation.
Brosius-Gersdorf expressed considerable reservations regarding the handling of her candidacy by Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. Having previously maintained a largely academic career, she stated the sudden and intense exposure to public attention was profoundly difficult. “One must, to be honest, simply figure out how to survive the days” she explained, referring to the experience of hearing falsehoods about her and encountering online harassment.
She asserted that a distorted representation of her views was actively promoted and criticized a perceived lack of willingness within segments of the governing coalition to engage in reasoned discussion regarding her qualifications. Brosius-Gersdorf reported offering early on to discuss her views on abortion rights, anticipating potential disagreements, but stated she encountered resistance to any substantive conversation on the topic – a matter she found perplexing given it falls outside the purview of the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction.
Brosius-Gersdorf noted Chancellor Merz never contacted her directly and criticized his decision to frame the parliamentary vote on the judgeship as a matter of personal conscience, arguing it should have been approached as a straightforward personnel decision.
Her eventual withdrawal from the candidacy was the result of a “weeks-long process” and she admitted to still grappling with the decision. “It is, to be honest, a decision I still struggle with” she commented, adding that it ultimately felt as though unsubstantiated campaigns had prevailed. Despite her lingering reservations, she believes the decision was correct, as it avoided further escalation and recognized her diminishing prospects for election.
