ABSTRACT
Germany's Federal Constitutional Court is widely regarded as a powerful court. This view is held not only by the general public but also in the professional literature. In this context, reference is made again and again to the essential cases of the Court's jurisdiction. This “judicial activism” has repeatedly met with criticism, especially in German constitutional law scholarship. The term “unbounded court” has been making the rounds for years now. This article is the first to subject the Court's expanding power to a thorough empirical examination by tracing the constitutional court jurisprudence of the last 30 years. One focus is on the instrument of constitutional requirements, which critics see as a particularly effective tool for constitutional judges to advance the expansion of their institutional power.
