7 February 2020

A team of 30 researchers submits a comparative international study on early marriage practices to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Since the inception of the Institute, scholarly treatment of concrete issues confronting judges, attorneys, legislators, and government agencies has been understood to be part of the mission. Institute scholars have written major research reports for government agencies, high courts, and the Association of German Jurists as well as position papers and expert opinions on foreign law for Germany’s courts. They have also helped draft model laws. In 2020, the Institute established the Centre for the Application of Foreign Law, which serves as a clearinghouse for these activities and has also begun studying the very practice of consulting on foreign law.

From its inception, the Institute’s advisory activities have always been a channel for its basic research to directly inform the practice of law. To Rabel, this aspect of the Institute’s work represents what he characterized as a nobile officium, a solemn duty. The Institute distinguishes between two types of expert opinions. On the one hand are the Gerichtsgutachten providing scholarly expertise on foreign law to German courts, handling cases in which cross-border issues that require the application of foreign law. On the other hand, the Institute prepares wissenschaftliche Großgutachten, major scholarly opinions and position papers for Germany’s high courts, government ministries, and other state agencies. These provide comparative legal analysis on what are often pressing socio-political issues. For example, in 1964, the Institute issued a report on an intended reform of the law of illegitimacy that later became the basis for federal legislation. In 2000, an Institute report commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Justice examined the legal status of same-sex partnerships in various European countries. Two major scholarly opinions, one on stock exchange reform (1997) and another on mediation (2008), both written under the direction of Klaus Hopt, flowed directly into the respective legislative processes.

In its 2020 position paper on early marriage, the Institute combined its expertise on foreign law with its core expertise on comparative and private international law. Under the leadership of Ralf Michaels and Nadjma Yassari, a team of 30 scholars examined the legal and practical approaches to early marriage in roughly 60 jurisdictions. The survey encompassed not only many Islamic legal systems, but also Japan, the United States, several Latin American jurisdictions, and both EU as well as non-EU European countries.

Media Response

Law against child marriage is unconstitutional

29 March 2023, Süddeutsche Zeitung

The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the Law to Combat Child Marriage is incompatible in its current form with Germany‘s Basic Law. Under the 2017 law, a marriage was deemed invalid if either of the spouses were under 16 at the time of the marriage’s conclusion. The Court’s ruling made reference to a 2020 study prepared by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law – at the request of the Constitutional Court judges – which detailed the legislation and approach of other countries in relation to such marriages.

What are the implications of the Karlsruhe ruling on ‘child marriage’?

19 April 2023, F.A.Z. Einspruch Podcast

Nadjma Yassari, head of the Institute’s research group for the law of Islamic countries, and Ralf Michaels, director at the Institute, were interviewed for this podcast. In the interview, they explain and discuss the consequences of the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on the Act to Prevent Child Marriages.

Child marriages in court

1 June 2023, Die Justizreporter*innen

Die Justizreporter*innen is a legal podcast produced by the public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk. In this episode, Director at the Institute Ralf Michaels and Nadjma Yassari, head of the Institute’s research group on the laws of Muslim countries, explain the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment in re Germany’s Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Kinderehen (Act to combat child marriages) and its consequences. Michaels and Yassari shed light on how both the law and the judgment came about and, more generally, on the legal status of early marriages.