Demokratische Legitimation von Verfassungsrichtern

The procedure by which the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court are elected, which had been essentially unchanged since its establishment, was substantively modified in June 2015. The election still has to be held by the Bundestag, but is now accomplished by its plenum and no longer by a twelve-headed committee. This thesis analyzes the constitutional necessity of this modification with regard to the democratic legitimacy of those judges and its consequences as well as the possibility and necessity of further changes, e.g. the implementation of public hearings. The comparison with the appointment procedure for the United States Supreme Court shows the constitutional and cultural origins of these procedures and illustrates the dependence of each on the respective legal and constitutional culture.