Stipulations of constitutional law governing the intensity of control of the case low of administrative courts

In several decisions, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, BVerfG) has derived the necessity of full judicial control from the circumstance that certain administrative decisions are based on constitutional law, and held the assessment competence of public authorities given them by the administrative courts to be unconstitutional. These rulings throw up more questions than they answer. Their importance lies in the fact that, given a certain intervention intensity, they have, from positions of substantive constitutional law, consequences for court procedures. As concerns constitutional complaints proceedings, however, the BVerfG has until now hardly clarified when such a specific constitutional position is given. The uncertainty in this point will thus necessarily have its effect upon the scope and limitation of the intensity of judicial control, and will now make case law also procedurally unpredictable. (orig.)