Withdrawal of norm control application challenging § 184b StGB leads to discontinuance of constitutional review

The Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the proceedings, effectively ending the case after the referring court withdrew its application, meaning no substantive ruling on the merits was issued and the referring court retains discretion to proceed without this constitutional review. The dispute concerned a norm control proceeding initiated by a lower court regarding the compatibility of § 184b of the German Criminal Code (StGB) with the Basic Law. The decisive legal basis for the decision was the procedural doctrine that a constitutional review procedure must be discontinued if the initiating authority voluntarily retracts its application, as established in prior case law such as BVerfG decision 2 BvF 1/13.