23 July 2026, MPIL Heidelberg<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 23 July 2026, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) held its 349th Ibero-American Colloquium, “Justices on the Bench: Constitutional Courts in Comparative View.” Susanne Baer, former Justice of the German Federal Constitutional Court, and Daniela Salazar, former Vice President and Justice of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, discussed the limits of constitutional review within their respective governments, the contrasting ways their courts are appointed, and the particular experience as a woman to reach the highest court bench. The discussion was moderated by Professor Armin von Bogdandy, Director at the MPIL, who guided the conversation and invited questions from the institute’s audience throughout the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both justices were among the first women to reach their respective courts’ highest ranks\u2013 Baer as the first openly homosexual judge elected to the German Federal Constitutional Court, Salazar as Vice President of Ecuador’s Constitutional Court\u2013 and both described entering institutions not yet accustomed to their presence. Baer recalled being asked, before her election, what a feminist judge would even do on the bench. Salazar described a court culture that scrutinized her age, gender and demeanor more than her legal reasoning, and said she resisted mimicking traditionally male models of authority, choosing instead to acknowledge emotion openly without treating it as a threat to her judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conversation opened with a comparison of the two systems’ appointment processes. In Germany, justices are elected by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, requiring agreement between government and opposition, with no academic background required and no gender-parity rule. In Ecuador, candidates are nominated by political bodies onto a list and then sit a merit exam; the constitution mandates parity on the list itself, though Salazar observed that women are frequently included to meet that requirement while still outperforming men in the exam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of the discussion turned to how each justice navigated collegial life on benches still adjusting to their presence. Baer traced a comparable pressure toward “clean-slate,” apolitical career judges, recalling being warned that a commitment to women, migrants and the disadvantaged would end her career\u2013 advice she said she ultimately disregarded. On the other hand, Salazar responded that her integrity was often questioned when cases touched on topics, such as gender-related issues, she had written about in her academic career. Her advice was not to be discouraged by this, and even in such a position to continue producing academic texts of personal interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Baer and Salazar stressed that reaching a decision collectively requires a genuine readiness for compromise, and that a ruling carried by nine votes is not a lesser outcome but reflects the balancing act inherent to collegial adjudication. Salazar, describing Ecuador’s more volatile democratic context, added that this readiness for compromise is sharpened by an awareness that a court which overreaches risks being curtailed in turn: Political upheaval has repeatedly disrupted Ecuador’s highest courts, contributing to uncertainty among judges about the security of their tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the limits of constitutional review, both justices emphasized that a court’s role is not to substitute itself for the legislature but to remain one institution among others within the separation of powers. Where a law is struck down on constitutional grounds, this does not foreclose the matter: legislators retain the opportunity to revise and reintroduce it in a form that meets constitutional requirements. As Baer put it, “the ball is still in play.” In this understanding, judicial review functions less as a final word than as a recurring exchange between courts and legislatures, in which a court’s task, per Baer, is only to be “the seatbelt” rather than the one steering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two assigned particular weight to the judiciary’s role in protecting groups with limited or no access to the ordinary political process. Asylum seekers, who cannot vote and have no direct representation in parliament, were cited as a case in point: absent recourse to courts, such groups have no institutional avenue through which to assert their rights at all. The same was said to hold for interests such as environmental and climate protection, which structurally struggle to gain traction in electoral politics precisely because they concern future or non-voting constituencies. Both justices agreed that it is these very cases\u2013 where courts step in for those the political process does not reach\u2013 that tend to draw the sharpest public criticism, even as they represent one of constitutional adjudication’s most necessary functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the justices addressed how courts read public and academic criticism of their rulings. Salazar urged scholars to weigh the effort required to secure the agreement of nine colleagues before dismissing a decision as timid, while Baer pointed to “court diplomacy,” including exchanges with international tribunals, as part of how a bench manages its exposure to political pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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23 July 2026, MPIL Heidelberg On 23 July 2026, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) held its 349th Ibero-American Colloquium, “Justices on the Bench: Constitutional Courts in Comparative View.” Susanne Baer, former Justice of the German Federal Constitutional Court, and Daniela Salazar, former Vice President and Justice of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[411],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iccal-seminar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"