Stephan Harbarth

On November 28, 2019, a lawyer from the law firm Dr. Stoll & Sauer filed a constitutional complaint against Harbarth's appointment as Federal Constitutional Court Judge on behalf of participants in the test case (MFK) in the emissions scandal against Volkswagen AG. There is concern that the automotive industry and the related industrial complex, such as suppliers, will be given the opportunity to influence the courts in their favor. In addition, he said, there was an unresolved issue of additional annual income in the millions from his time as a member of the Bundestag. On 18 February 2020 (Ref. 2 BvR 2088/19), the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint. The law firm announced that it would consider taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2019, two members of the German Parliament filed an action for a declaratory judgment with the Federal Constitutional Court, seeking a declaratory judgment that the election and appointment of Harbarth as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court was null and void:BVerfG, decision of 2 July 2019 - 2 BvE 4/19. . The core of the applicants' argumentation was, according to the summary of the Federal Constitutional Court in the reasons for its decision: "Irrespective of this, there is a deliberate violation of the provision of § 44a of the AbgG that is laid down by simple statute, because the respondent in the second place did not disclose that the Vice-President of the Federal Constitutional Court, in his time as a Member of Parliament, had received substantial, probably overwhelming, property allocations from third, unsettled sources. In view of numerous unclarified detailed questions regarding the income of the Member of Parliament from his former activity as a lawyer, during which he had also been a member of the board of directors and managing director of the law firm, there was a presumption of an inadmissible conflict of interest that was incompatible with the free mandate of a Member of Parliament. He had therefore disregarded Paragraphs 44a and 44b of the AbgG; at the same time, the information which he had provided in an obviously concealing manner had not been verified by the respondent in the second place and had therefore been deliberately mispublished. According to the complainant, this infringed Article 38.1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law, which guarantees a comprehensive right of the Members of Parliament to ask questions, to be informed and to receive information. The untruthful information and the deficiencies in disclosure also led to a violation of Article 97.1 of the Basic Law and the principle of democracy. Since the election, the determination of the election result and the appointment were infected by it, all measures were null and void. (Decision of 2 July 2019 - 2 BvE 4/19, margin no. 10). In the reporting of the legal specialist press, the dismissal of the accusations was received positively, since the accusations were "obviously speculative and made in the open without any external cause" .

In an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine, Harbarth rejected the accusation of bias. In Spiegel, Harbarth had already said in January 2019 that one "could not 'wish for a lawyer to be elected to the Federal Constitutional Court' and then 'consider it fundamentally problematic that this lawyer also had clients'".

In June 2017, Harbarth voted against Germany's introduction of same-sex marriage.

From 2016, Harbarth served as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, under the leadership of successive chairmen Volker Kauder (2016-2018) and Ralph Brinkhaus (2018). In this capacity, he coordinated the group's legislative activities on consumer protection, domestic affairs, sports, and minorities. He was also a member of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs. In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, he was part of the CDU delegation.

Harbarth became a member of the German Bundestag in the 2009 elections. In his first term, he served on the Committee on Legal Affairs and its Subcommittee on European Law. From 2014 until 2016, he led his parliamentary group's work in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection. During this time, he was the group's rapporteur on the German Stock Corporation Act (AktG).

From 2006 until 2008, Harbarth was a partner of the international law firm Shearman & Sterling in Mannheim.

From 1991 until 1996, Harbarth studied law at the University of Heidelberg. He received his Ph.D. in 1998, with a thesis on investor protection in public sector companies. In 2000 completed an LL.M. program at Yale Law School, on a scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Stephan Harbarth (born 19 December 1971 in Heidelberg) is the Vice President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht), former German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). From 2009 until 2018 he served as member of the Bundestag. On 22 November 2018 he was elected to the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundestag. He succeeded Ferdinand Kirchhof and serves in the court's first senate. On 23 November 2018, one day after his election to the court, he was elected Vice President of the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundesrat. In this capacity, he is chairman of the first senate. On 15 May 2020, Harbarth was elected President of Federal Constitutional Court. He will enter office after being formally appointed by the President of Germany.