(Landes-)Verfassungsgerichtliche Anerkennung und Kontrolle gesetzgeberischer Gestaltungsspielräume

Kontrolle gesetzgeberischer Gestaltungsspielräume The article examines the constitutional review of legislative discretion, assessment, and evaluation, particularly in situations where no quantifiable material standards for legislative decisions can be derived from the constitution. The starting point is the recent case law of the Federal Constitutional Court and the state constitutional courts, which, in such regulatory matters, has moved away from reviewing outcomes in favor of reviewing procedures and reasoning. The constitutional courts largely refrain from making their own substantive assessment of the legislative decision and limit themselves to examining whether the legislature has made its decision on the basis of an appropriate, comprehensible, and transparently documented investigation of the facts. The legislature's prerogative of assessment and evaluation corresponds to a burden of presentation and justification in the legislative process, which enables the court to review the justifiability of the legislative assumptions. The requirement for transparency is central here: the data, expert opinions, forecasts, assessments, and considerations relevant to the decision must already be determined in the legislative process and disclosed in the legislative materials.