German lawmakers elect top court judges after ugly coalition row

German lawmakers on Thursday elected three new judges to the country’s top court, ending a bitter dispute that had weighed heavily on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government.

Members of the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house, approved law professor Ann-Katrin Kaufhold and administrative judge Sigrid Emmenegger – both nominated by the centre-left Social Democratic Party – and conservative nominee Günter Spinner for appointment to the Constitutional Court.

In early July, a vote to confirm a previous SPD candidate, law professor Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, was controversially postponed after conservative members of Merz’s alliance refused to back her over her support for abortion rights.

Brosius-Gersdorf later withdrew her candidacy, and the SPD nominated Emmenegger instead.

To be appointed, judges needed to secure at least two-thirds of all ballots cast and more than half the votes of all 630 lawmakers in the lower house.