Institute for German and European Political Party Law and Research

The Institut für Parteienrecht (Institute for Political Party Law) was founded in mid-1991. It was preceded by a research project Das Parteienrecht der EG-Staaten (“Party Law of the EC countries”), initiated and conducted by Dimitris Th. Tsatsos, professor for German and International Law at the FernUniversität Hagen (Open University Hagen). Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Tsat-sos served as head of the Institute since its inception in 1991. In 1997, Prof. Dr. Martin Morlok succeeded Tsatsos as head of the Institute.

The Institute has acquired national and international renown for its leading role in researching and investigating scandals of political party funding. Furthermore, the Institute has tracked the emergence and development of political parties at European level. The institute’s staff provided research related to Dimitris Tsatsos’ initiative for a statute for political parties at Euro-pean level which eventually came into force as EU law in 2004. Last but not least, the Institute organizes conferences and seminars and publishes its own yearly periodical Mitteilungen des Instituts für Deutsches und Internationales Parteienrecht und Parteienforschung (Communications of the Institute for German and European Political Party Law and Party Research), thus providing to an interested public a forum for debate and discussion of topical issues from its main areas of research.

In the course of the restructuring of the academic landscape in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia, the Institute is now based at the state capitol Düsseldorf’s Heinrich Heine Universität. The Institute was able to broaden its range of research areas by teaming up with the party research unit of the university’s politics department. As a consequence, the Institute became the “Institute for German and European Political Party Law and Research” and is now an interdisciplinary institute supported by Heinrich Heine University’s Law department as well as its Politics department. In the course of this process, Ulrich von Alemann, professor for the Political System of Germany, has become deputy head of the Institute.