Free Republic

Germany’s top court on Wednesday required parliament to legally recognize a “third gender” from birth, potentially making it the first European country to offer intersex people the option of identifying as neither male nor female. Current regulations on civil status are discriminatory against intersex people, the Federal Constitutional Court said, noting that the sexual identity of an individual is protected as a basic right. Legislators must by the end of 2018 pass a new regulation to offer a third gender option in birth registers, the court added, ruling in favour of an appeal brought by an intersex person. In the...

Austria’s constitutional court has annulled the result of the country’s presidential elections a week before the winning candidate was due to be sworn into office. The court president, Gerhart Holzinger, announced on Friday that the run-off vote between Norbert Hofer of the populist rightwing Freedom party and Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen would have to be repeated across the whole country after an investigation had revealed irregularities in the count of the vote in several constituencies. In May, Hofer had lost out to Van der Bellen in a knife-edge election, with a majority of only 30,863 votes. While the Austrian...

Austria's highest court has annulled the result of the presidential election narrowly lost by the far-right candidate of the Freedom Party. The party had challenged the result, saying that postal votes had been improperly handled. The Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost the election to the former leader of the Greens, Alexander Van der Bellen, by less than a percentage point. The election will now be re-run. Announcing the decision, Gerhard Holzinger, head of the Constitutional Court, said: "The challenge brought by Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache against the 22 May election... has been upheld.

ST. PETERSBURG, March 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Constitutional Court has said the Treaty on Crimea’s Accession to Russia corresponds to the Russian Constitution. March 18, 16:06 Russia Agreement between Russia and Republic of Crimea signed “The Constitutional Court recognizes that the Treaty corresponds to the Russian Constitution,” the Constitutional Court chairman, Valery Zorkin, said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the draft treaty on Crimea's reunification with Russia and the formation of new sub-federal entities as part of the Russian Federation. He also notified both chambers of the Russian Parliament on the proposals by Crimea's Supreme...

Germany’s constitutional court is expected to rule this spring on the legality of the European Central Bank’s bond purchases, a scheme that has eased the eurozone crisis by calming markets. Udo Di Fabio, who served as constitutional judge between 1999-2011, told an audience at the Berlin-based Stiftung fur Familienunterhmen on Wednesday (29 January) that the court is “deliberating at the moment if the ECB can buy bonds at all.” According to EU laws, the ECB is prohibited from direct government funding, meaning direct bond purchases when a national government tries to sell debt on the markets. But in the past...

Thai PM must quit, court rules BANGKOK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A Thai court said on Tuesday Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej must step down because he violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows while in office.