Matthias Jestaedt is Professor of Law at Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg. Oliver Lepsius is Professor of Law at the University of Münster. Christoph Möllers is Professor of Public Law and Jurisprudence at Humboldt-University. Christoph Schönberger is Professor of Public Law at the University of Konstanz.

[T]he authors of this insightful and timely series of four essays ... chart the establishment and development of the court and demonstrate how rapidly it established itself, it's function and its centrality to law making and application in post war West Germany ... This is a timely book. It demonstrates that the public and state authorities of a once young and now mature, central democracy, have embraced judicial oversight. The world did not fall in.

• Justin Collings: Introduction 1: Christoph Schönberger: Karlsruhe: Notes on a Court 2: Matthias Jestaedt: Karlsruhe as Phenomenon: What Makes the Court What It Is 3: Oliver Lepsius: The Standard-Setting Power 4: Christoph Möllers: Legality, Legitimacy, and Legitimation of the Federal Constitutional Court