Sebastian Gemkow (born 27 July 1978) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as State Minister of Science (since 2019) and as State Minister of Justice (2014–2019) in the governments of successive

Minister-President A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. I ...

Stanislaw Tillich Stanislaw Tillich (; hsb, Stanisław Tilich; born 10 April 1959) is a German politician of the CDU. He served as the 3rd Minister President of Saxony from 2008 to 2017. From 1 November 2015 until 31 October 2016, he was President of the Bund ...

(2014–2018) and

Michael Kretschmer Michael Kretschmer (born 7 May 1975) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister President of Saxony since 13 December 2017. Since 2022, he has been one of four deputy chairs of the CDU, under ...

(since 2017). Since 2009, he has been a member of the

Landtag of the Free State of Saxony The Landtag of Saxony (german: Sächsischer Landtag), also known in English as the Saxon State Parliament, is the legislature of the Free State of Saxony, one of Germany's sixteen states. It is responsible for legislation, control of the govern ...

, the state's parliament.

Early life and career

From 1998 to 2004, Gemkow studied law at the University of Leipzig, the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

und the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

. After he had successfully passed his first government licensing examination in 2004, he worked in Leipzig and also passed the second government licensing examination in 2006. After that, he settled as a lawyer in Leipzig. Until 2014, he also served as

honorary consul A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

Political career

Gemkow has been a member of the Christian Democratic Union since 1998. Since the 2009 state elections, Gemkow has been a member of the Saxon State Parliament. In the Parliament, he first served as a member of the Committee on Science, Education, Culture and Media. As one of the state’s representatives at the Bundesrat, Gemkow is a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs. He is also a member of the German-Russian Friendship Group set up by the Bundesrat and the Russian Federation Council. Gemkow was Saxon Minister of Justice from November 2014 to December 2019. He has been Saxony's Minister of Science since December 2019 In

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

’s 2020 local elections, Gemkow won the first round of voting against incumbent mayor

Burkhard Jung Burkhard Jung (born 7 March 1958 in Siegen) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been the 21st lord mayor (''Oberbürgermeister'') of Leipzig (Saxony) since March 29, 2006. In addition, he has been president of th ...

; however, he eventually lost in the runoff vote.

Other activities

Since 2010 Gemkow has been the president of the Parliamentary Forum Mittel- und Osteuropa, which is a cross-party organization of the Saxon Parliament's members and responsible representatives of business and society. The goal of the organization is to promote the cooperation between political and administrative actors from Saxony and the Central and Eastern European countries in order to support economic, cultural and social development. Additional positions include: *

Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI CPfS) (german: Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society. Located in Dresden, the institute primarily conducts basic res ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI MiS) in Leipzig is a research institute of the Max Planck Society. Founded on March 1, 1996, the institute works on projects which apply mathematics in various areas of natural science ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics __NOTOC__ The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) is a biology research institute located in Dresden, Germany. It was founded in 1998 and was fully operational in 2001. More than twenty research groups work in m ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems The Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex systems is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, located in Dresden, Germany. Research The research at the institute in the field of the physics of complex systems rang ...

, Member of the Board of TrusteesBoard of Trustees

Personal life

Gemkow is Evangelical Lutheran, married and has three children.

References

External links

Eigene Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gemkow, Sebastian Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians 1978 births Living people Members of the Landtag of Saxony Ministers of the Saxony State Government University of Hamburg alumni