The German Federal Constitutional Court

Judicial public relations: Determinants of press release publication by constitutional courts

“…They are further used for statutory issues and to settle conflicts between lower court branches. Constitutional complaints can be initiated by ordinary citizens and deal with statutes believed to violate the plaintiff’s constitutional rights (Hailbronner and Martini, 2017). Constitutional disputes between federal organs and those between the Federation and the Länder deal with disputes regarding the constitutional competencies of the different political branches.…”

“…This difference is reflected in the division of the senates into the various proceeding types, with constitutional disputes reserved for the second senate and abstract and concrete reviews reserved for the first senate. However, the sharp rise in the number of constitutional complaints in the last few years has largely nullified this division of labour (Hailbronner and Martini, 2017). Nevertheless, to control for the distinction between both senates, a binary variable was created and assigned the value of 1 if the second senate was the deciding branch and the value of 0 for the first senate.…”

“… 6. A brief overview of the structure, composition, jurisdiction, case load, argument structure, and key issues can be found in Hailbronner and Martini (2017). …”