Secession of a federal state: Incompatibility with the constitutional order of the Federal Republic of Germany

The Federal Constitutional Court refused to accept the constitutional complaint for decision, thereby upholding the lower courts' rejection of the petition. The dispute involved a challenge to the refusal to convene a popular referendum on the secession of a federal state from the Federal Republic of Germany. The Court held that as a nation-state founded on the constituent power of the German people, the federal states are not "masters of the Constitution," and therefore, secessionist endeavors by individual states have no place under the Basic Law and violate the constitutional order. The key legal basis is the indivisibility of the German state and the definition of "constitutional order" within the framework of the Basic Law, which precludes any unilateral secession by a federal state.