This ends my day of blogging on the German constitution. Technically, the day ended two hours ago, but I didn’t finish in time. I didn’t cover everything worth covering. For example, a lot could be said about proportional representation, international law, national defense, conscription, and emergency provisions. But for today I’m done and you’ll have to do without my sublime insights on those questions.
The Federal Convention I took as occasion of this special blogging day will meet at noon, 10 hours after this post goes online. Frankly, I won’t be following it. I do have a lot of respect for the office of the president, but the Federal Convention is boring. There will be no debate and the result is already public knowledge.
To recapitulate I told you about the Basic Law being a provisional arrangement turned permanent, how I dislike the parliamentary system but like its seperation between the heads of state and government, how i would tweak the presidential election process, about the peculiar German halfheartedness about federalism, about the abolition of capital punishment being an upside and the lack of direct democracy being a downside of the Basic Law, of my paranoia about judicial review and eternity clauses, and of some problems ahead with European integration.
That’s it, I hope you liked it.