Special Issue The OMT Decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court Adjudicating Economics? Central Bank Independence and the Appropriate Standard of Judicial Review By Matthias Goldmann * A. Unconventional Monetary Policy Triggers Unconventional Adjudication In Karlsruhe’s recent request for a preliminary ruling, an unconventional monetary policy measure of the European Central Bank (ECB) finds an unconventional judicial response. 1 Based on its mandate to enforce the fundamental right to vote, 2 the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) leaves no doubt about its view that the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions Programme (OMT Programme) 3 violates the law of the European Union and hence the German Basic Law, unless one reads them in a rather restrictive way. But as unconventional monetary policy steps up the need for the ECB to justify the legality of its measures, so does the FCC’s unconventional expansion of the scope of judicial review raise questions which the recent decision in its—generally laudable—brevity leaves underexplored. In particular, the decision does not dwell much on the issue whether it is appropriate for a court to review issues of monetary policy, and which standard of review should apply. Only Judge Gerhardt calls the majority’s standard of review into question when he doubts whether the requirement for transgressions of the European Union’s competences to be “manifest” is a workable criterion for defining the scope of the FCC’s ultra vires control. 4 * Dr. iur. (Heidelberg), LL.M. (NYU), Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law, goldmann@mpil.de. Warm thanks to Silvia Steininger for research assistance and to the editorial team of the German Law Journal for their expedient, diligent and most helpful reviews of the manuscript. 1 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2728/13 (Jan. 14, 2014), http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20140114_2bvr272813en.html [hereinafter OMT Ruling]. 2 GRUNDGESETZ FÜR DIE BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND [GRUNDGESETZ] [GG] [BASIC LAW], May 23, 1949, Art. 38 (Ger.). 3 See Press Release, European Cent. Bank, Technical Features of Outright Monetary Transactions (Sep. 6, 2012), http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2012/html/pr120906_1.en.html. 4 OMT Ruling at paras. 16–17 (Gerhardt, J., dissenting).