The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany will welcome a new judge in 2011: Prof. Dr. Susanna Baer, an enthusiastic comparativist whose work probes a number of fields including human rights, gender equality, law & religion, and legal theory.
Baer, who most recently held a professorship at the Humboldt University Berlin, has written a number of papers on comparative constitutional law, including a recent piece in the University of Toronto Law Journal entitled “Dignity, Liberty, Equality: A Fundamental Rights Triangle of Constitutionalism,” which is available here (subscription required). Her CV is available here, her publication list here, and her invited lectures here.
Baer previously earned a Master’s in Law from Michigan, where she also held a Cook Global Law Professorship last year. A recent press release from Michigan suggests that Baer will remain involved in some capacity at the Law School during her tenure at the Constitutional Court.
Congratulations to Judge-designate Prof. Dr. Baer!
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One response to “A Comparativist Joins the German Constitutional Court”
If memory serves, German FCC judges with a permanent academic appointment are allowed to keep their academic position throughout their time on the bench. Having had the pleasure of chatting with Prof. Baer a couple of weeks ago in Berlin, I can say that this is certainly not your typical, mainstream constitutional court appointment, and I mean that in the best possible sense. What makes this an even more intriguing appointment is the fact that Prof. Baer is probably the first openly lesbian appointee to any constitutional court that I am aware of. It’ll be interesting to see how will this factor, and perhaps more importantly, Prof. Baer’s academic background and intellectual inclinations, affect her jurisprudence.