ABSTRACT
Post-war Germany has been built on ruins: actual rubble as well as moral devastation and guilt. The war that Germany caused led to widespread destruction of its cities. The system of adjudication of constitutional matters could be called centralised, but at the same time – paradoxically – there are very good reasons why, from another perspective, the only appropriate description is 'highly decentralised'. In a category of change, that mainly concerns the impact of the judgements in practical terms, the Bundesverfassungsgericht reacted to the creation of the particular legal status available to homosexual couples. Though leaving the definition of marriage unchanged, the Bundesverfassungsgericht became, in effect, the main actor in the process of gradually closing the gap between the legal privileges of married couples and the legal consequences of these civil unions. The disruptive character of the change did not originate from the legal reasoning of the Court but from an act of parliament.
