Justice | Juli Zeh makes short work of it

More readings and fewer court hearings in the future? Juli Zeh in March 2026 Photo: dpa/Jennifer Brückner The writer and lawyer Juli Zeh has been an honorary judge at the Brandenburg State Constitutional Court since 2019. She is actually elected for this until 2029. But now Zeh has asked for her early release from this position. She justified this with “high workload due to professional duties”. Zeh's new novel "Pony Show" has just been published.

SPD parliamentary group leader Björn Lüttmann regretted the resignation of the writer, who is herself an SPD member but still repeatedly criticizes the SPD's policies and politics as a whole. “With her legal competence and her independent attitude, she has made an important contribution to the work of the court,” praised Lüttmann. “The necessary new appointments pose a challenge to the state parliament given the current political majority situation,” says the parliamentary group leader. The SPD will consult with its coalition partner CDU as soon as possible.

"The necessary new appointments pose a challenge to the state parliament given the current political majority situation."

In Brandenburg, constitutional judges need a two-thirds majority in the state parliament. Of the 88 MPs, 30 currently belong to the AfD parliamentary group. A new constitutional judge cannot be elected without the AfD. A well-intentioned but poorly executed campaign to vote tactically in the 2024 state election has led to this situation. The Greens and the Left failed at the five percent hurdle, not least because there were calls to vote against Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke's party (SPD). This was intended to prevent the AfD, which was leading in the polls, from actually emerging from the election as the strongest force. The SPD was able to reverse the trend and finish just ahead of the AfD. However, this comes at the price that the AfD now has more than a third of the mandates due to the Left and Greens dropping out of parliament. A constitutional change has therefore become impossible without their blessing, as has the election of constitutional judges.

That didn't have to be the case. Brandenburg's left has been stable at over five percent in the surveys since the beginning of 2025 and is currently at nine percent. The Greens have been exceeding the aforementioned mark since the end of 2025 and are currently at seven percent. This suggests that both have fallen victim to the wrong tactical choice.

So that the workload of the other judges does not increase any further, the position at the Constitutional Court vacated by Juli Zeh must be “filled quickly,” demanded AfD state chairman René Springer, with a view to the 95 cases currently pending there. “According to previous parliamentary practices, the AfD, as the strongest opposition faction, has the right to make proposals,” recalled Springer. The AfD will nominate a suitable candidate and expects "that the other factions will respect the democratic decision of the people of Brandenburg." In Springer's logic, this means accepting and voting for the candidate proposed by the AfD.

The BSW MP Falk Peschel criticized the SPD and CDU: "If you no longer have a comfortable two-thirds majority, you can't simply change the rules of the game and take away central rights from parliament. The court should choose its own judges in the future if the parties do not agree?" That would be the landlord's way! Peschel said it was “the damn duty of all factions in the state parliament to find personalities whose professional and human qualifications transcend party boundaries.” He called on the coalition to stop the “transparent trickery” immediately.

At a meeting of the Free Farmers in Schönwalde/Glien, Havella, in February 2025, Juli Zeh announced: "If I were only in organizations that I liked everything about, then I couldn't be in any organization, especially not in my party - the SPD." Zeh also said that it was wrong to believe that all AfD voters were xenophobes. She saw the high level of support for this party as a “wake-up call”.

Lars Hünich (AfD), a member of the state parliament who was present, interpreted such statements very generously in his own sense and said "nd" on the sidelines of the event: "Everything that Juli Zeh said was AfD." Now the AfD state chairman Springer declared: "Your commitment to our country deserves recognition."

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