Malte Graßhof, the current president of the Baden‑Württemberg Constitutional Court, is widely expected to be appointed as the new president of the Federal Administrative Court. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Friday edition, the candidacy has received bipartisan support from federal and state legal policymakers. The judges’ selection committee is slated to submit Graßhof’s name in June as a prospective judge in Leipzig, at which point the incumbent court president, Andreas Korbmacher, will step down. Following a vote in the committee, a cabinet decision of the federal government will formally confirm Graßhof as the successor.
Professionally, Graßhof has served as president of Mannheim’s Administrative Court for nearly three years and also holds a part‑time position on the state constitutional court in Stuttgart. A native of the Rhineland, he is the son of former federal constitutional judge Karin Graßhof, who served from 1986 to 1998 on the recommendation of the SPD. Graßhof himself is affiliated with the CDU.
In a 2023 article for the Stuttgarter Zeitung he promoted the idea of a constitutionally balanced court and critiqued judges who are inflexible or driven by personal agendas as unsuitable for the role. His inaugural speech as constitutional court president in 2018 challenged the notion of the judiciary as “silent violence” and emphasized the court’s duty to occasionally make its voice heard, likening it to a “drum in the background”.
Baden‑Württemberg’s justice minister, Marion Gentges of the CDU, praised Graßhof’s appointment to the administrative court for his contributions to the introduction of electronic court records and his work during the wave of asylum‑related cases.
