The German parliament failed to complete one of its more important constitutional tasks before it went into summer recess in July. The leader of the Green Party, Britta Hasselmann, shared this view: "Today is a bad day for parliament, for democracy, and for the Federal Constitutional Court." The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe is supposed to safeguard the German Basic Law Image: Udo Herrmann/CHROMORANGE/picture allianceThe judicial pillar of the German stateThe Federal Constitutional Court is one of Germany's five organs of state. The other four are the lower house of parliament (Bundestag), the upper house of parliament (Bundesrat), which represents the state governments, the president, and the federal government. In September, the SPD named 51-year-old judge Sigrid Emmenegger as a candidate for the constitutional court.