Ann‑Katrin Kaufhold, the newly appointed vice‑president of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, stressed how crucial diversity is inside the court. “Pluralism matters to me in the judiciary, and I believe everyone benefits from it” she told the “FAZ”. “More diversity can certainly be imagined”. She warned that reflecting on this and keeping it in mind is especially the responsibility of those who nominate constitutional judges.
Kaufhold said, “We need people with different positions who listen to one another and fight for common solutions. This tendency is increasingly lost in society, so it is good that it works in Karlsruhe”. She also pointed out that her scientific remarks-particularly regarding “system oversight” and societal concerns-have been distorted.
When asked about the legal personhood of natural goods such as rivers, Kaufhold explained that it makes sense for legal scholars to wrestle with the question. “I have not settled on a definitive stance: there are compelling arguments for and against it”. She complained that people deliberately spin her words, misrepresent her statements, or attribute positions that cannot be logically inferred from them. “For instance, I have seen that my comments on climate protection, which had a descriptive‑analytical character, were reinterpreted in tweets as normative judgments and political demands”.
She added that she has noted that courts today significantly influence whether and how climate protection is pursued. “Those who review worldwide jurisprudence come to the same conclusion”. How this development is evaluated is a different issue; constitutional‑law scholars discuss it with good reason. Yet the legislator must make the core decisions. “Courts only set minimum requirements”. It was falsely claimed that she wanted to change that. Even her habilitation on “system oversight” was cited to suggest she intends to undermine the separation of powers, a claim she deemed absurd and unsubstantial. Her habilitation actually concerns financial‑market supervision, not a threat to constitutional checks and balances.