Demokratische Legitimation der dritten Gewalt

The judiciary is independent in its decision-making. Axel Tschentscher shows how democratic legitimation as defined by the prevailing formal model of democracy leads to inconsistent results. He outlines an alternative control model as the framework of democracy according to the German Basic Law. This model relies on potential control over the law as the primary criterion for democratic legitimacy. As long as substantive control ist present, the requsite level of legitimation according to the Basic Law can be attained even without the elements of personal and organizational chains of command. The extent to which the lawmaker takes responsibility for the results of judicial decision-making would be underestimated if he were required to actually exercise specific guidance in every field rather than merely retain potential control over the outcome. Regarding judicial selection, the control model provides the Länder with a wide range of procedures meeting the requirements of the German Basic Law; not even elements of cooptation are excluded per se.