Whenever there's talk of a crisis of democracy in Germany, leading politicians proudly point to the well-established independence of the "judges from Karlsruhe" — that is, the judges who sit on the Federal Constitutional Court, which is based in the southern German city.

The Federal Constitutional Court is one of the highest courts in Germany and is also seen as the "fifth organ" of the country's political system, alongside the presidency, the parliament or Bundestag, the federal government and the Bundesrat, the federal council of German states.

Unlike the Federal Criminal Court, which is the highest court for civil and criminal justice, the Federal Constitutional Court's job is to ensure that Germany's Basic Law — its constitution — is upheld. It is seen as the guardian of Germans' basic rights.

The Federal Constitutional Court is also the only court that can decide about banning a political party. The court's decisions are widely recognized and often offer a course correction for ruling political parties.

All of this is why last week's failure to elect three new judges to the Federal Constitutional Court has been so controversial.

There are 16 judges on the bench, all of whom can serve 12 years. Half of them are chosen by the Bundesrat, the council of leaders of Germany's 16 states and the other half by parliament, the Bundestag. In both cases, there must be a two-thirds majority for a judge to be successfully elected.

The procedure is always highly political because the court is seen as a pillar of German democracy, a symbol of the separation of powers in the German system and a defense against any politics that work against German citizens' basic rights.

Although the process has never been as emotionally heated as the selection of judges for the US' Supreme Court, there have been occasional........

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