German court rejects electoral reform, in win for smaller parties

Germany's top court has rejected a change to the electoral system that would have disadvantaged smaller parties in parliamentary elections, according to a leaked document of the ruling.

Plans by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government to abolish an exception to the 5 percent rule, a threshold parties must reach to enter the German parliament, are partly unconstitutional, Constitutional Court judges found, according to the document.

The court was not available for comment. The ruling is scheduled to be announced later on Tuesday.

The electoral law reform was challenged by Bavaria's Christian Social Union and the Left party, which is mainly strong in eastern Germany.

Germany's electoral system, drawn up in the post-war years to prevent parliamentary fragmentation and proliferation of minor parties that aided the 1930s rise of Adolf Hitler's Nazis, lets only parties that win 5 percent of the vote take seats in parliament.

Scholz's coalition wanted to abolish the only exception to this rule: parties that come first, in at least three single-member constituencies, gain parliamentary seats in proportion to their nationwide vote share, even if it is less than 5 percent.

Removing this exception would damage the equal footing of parties, the court ruling says.

The most recent beneficiary of the rule was the Left party, heirs to the East German Communist Party, who won three directly elected mandates and formed a faction with dozens of legislators, despite receiving just 4.9 percent of the vote nationwide.

Bavaria's Christian Social Union, permanently allied to the opposition Christian Democrats, also benefits. Since it runs only in the southeastern state, it rarely gets over 5 percent. It remains a parliamentary fixture since it tends to win most of Bavaria's 45 constituencies outright.

The coalition's reform was intended to halt the tendency for the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament now with 733 seats, from growing ever larger and more unwieldy.

Under the current system, extra seats are created so that overall distribution remains proportional, even if party candidates win individual constituencies.