## Facts

- Rapid growth in university enrollment in Germany led to capacity shortages, especially in medical education, prompting universities to impose absolute admission caps (numerus clausus) when training capacity was fully exhausted.
- Two administrative courts referred state admission laws for constitutional review after rejected medical applicants challenged their denial of admission.
- Hamburg’s university law authorized admission limits but left key selection criteria largely to university rulemaking; the University of Hamburg allocated places mainly by academic performance and by age cohort, with additional discretionary reservations.
- Bavaria’s admissions law allowed limits when necessary to maintain functioning courses and gave a preference in ranking to applicants with Bavarian residence and local secondary-school credentials.
- The challenged state provisions determined whether formally qualified applicants could be excluded from medical study solely due to limited capacity and how applicants would be selected and distributed.

## Issues

1. Whether the constitutional guarantee of occupational freedom, together with equality and the social-state principle, creates an individual right to admission to university study when capacity is scarce.
2. When absolute admission caps for a field of study are constitutionally permissible.
3. Whether (a) delegating essential admission criteria to university rulemaking and (b) granting residence-based ranking preferences comply with constitutional requirements of legality and equality.

## Decision

- The court held that constitutional occupational freedom, read with equality and the social-state principle, entails a right to admission to university study as a right to equal participation in existing study capacity, not a guaranteed entitlement to newly created places.
- Absolute admission restrictions are constitutional only if limited to strict necessity, imposed after full use of existing training capacity, and implemented through objective selection criteria that give every qualified applicant a real chance while considering preferred study location as far as possible.
- The Hamburg statute was unconstitutional to the extent it failed to set, by legislation, the type and priority of selection criteria for absolute admission caps, instead leaving essential decisions to sub-statutory regulation.
- The Bavarian residence preference was unconstitutional insofar as it improved ranking for residents even when capacity was fully exhausted, thereby disadvantaging equally qualified non-residents without sufficient justification.
- The court declared the relevant portions incompatible with the constitution and required legislative reform, while permitting temporary continued application under transitional arrangements to prevent disruption of admissions.

## Legal Principles

- Fundamental rights protecting occupational choice include a derivative participation right to equal access to state-organized educational opportunities when access depends on scarce public capacity.
- There is no general constitutional right to the creation of additional study places beyond what is realistically and fiscally possible; capacity expansion duties are bounded by feasibility and legislative budget discretion, subject to reasonable efforts.
- Absolute admission caps require: (1) full utilization of existing training capacity, (2) restriction to strict necessity, and (3) allocation by objective, appropriate criteria that provide each qualified applicant a meaningful chance and account for location preferences where feasible.
- Essential decisions affecting fundamental-rights limitations—particularly rules that can exclude qualified persons from a professional path—must be determined by statute; delegation is permissible only for implementation details within defined legislative bounds.
- Admissions rules must comply with equality; territorial or residence-based advantages in ranking are impermissible when they displace equally qualified applicants for scarce places without a compelling justification.

## Conclusion

The court constitutionalized access to higher education under scarcity as an equal-participation right, required capacity-exhausting and objectively justified allocation rules set by the legislature, and struck down both unguided delegation of selection criteria and residence-based ranking preferences in medical admissions.


Numerus Clausus I Case, 33 BVerfGE 303 (BVerfG 1972)