Marco Buschmann (born 1 August 1977) is a German lawyer and politician of the

Free Democratic Party Free Democratic Party is the name of several political parties around the world. It usually designates a party ideologically based on liberalism. Current parties with that name include: *Free Democratic Party (Germany), a liberal political party in ...

(FDP) who has been serving as Federal Minister of Justice in

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor of German ...

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

since 2021. He has served as a member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

from the state of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

from 2009 to 2013 and again since 2017.

Early life and career

After graduating from the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Gelsenkirchen in 1997, Buschmann studied law at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

. In 2004, he passed his first state examination at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. This was followed by a legal traineeship at the Regional Court in Essen and in 2007 the Second State Examination at the Higher Regional Court in Hamm. From 2007 until 2009, Buschmann worked as a lawyer at the Düsseldorf office of international law firm White & Case. In his free time, he was also a

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

artist under the pseudonym MBSounds.

Political career

Buschmann has been a member of the FDP since 1994. In the 2009 Bundestag elections, Buschmann ran for election in the constituency of

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...

and entered the Bundestag via list number 20. In parliament, he served on the Committee on Legal Affairs. He was chairman of the working group on legal affairs in the FDP parliamentary group and an expert on constitutional and economic law. From 2013, he succeeded Christian Ahrendt as the group's spokesperson on legal affairs. Due to the failure of his party to reach the five percent hurdle in the 2013 Bundestag elections, he left the Bundestag. The federal executive committee of the FDP appointed Buschmann as Federal Executive Director with effect from 1 June 2014. Following his election to the German Bundestag, his term as Federal Executive Director ended on 31 October 2017. Marco Mendorf was appointed as his successor.

Member of the German Parliament, 2017–present

In the 2017 federal elections, Buschmann stood for the FDP in the Gelsenkirchen constituency and was elected to the 19th German Bundestag via 4th place on the North Rhine-Westphalia state list of the FDP. In parliament, he was the

chief whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom ...

of his parliamentary group, in this capacity supporting the group's chair

Christian Lindner Christian Wolfgang Lindner (born 7 January 1979) is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) serving as the Federal Minister of Finance since 8 December 2021. He has been the party leader of the liberal FDP since 2013 and a Memb ...

. In addition, he was a member of the Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chairpersons based on party representation; the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection; and the Committee on the Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and the Rules of Procedure. He was also an alternate member of the Committee on the Election of Judges (''Wahlausschuss''), which is in charge of appointing judges to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.

Federal Minister of Justice, 2021–present

In the negotiations to form a so-called

traffic light coalition In German politics, a traffic light coalition (german: Ampelkoalition) is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' tra ...

of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SPD), the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

and the FDP following the 2021 German elections, Buschmann was part of his party's delegation in the leadership group, alongside

, Volker Wissing and

Bettina Stark-Watzinger Bettina Stark-Watzinger ( Stark, born 12 May 1968) is a German economist and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as Minister of Education and Research in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet since 2021. She has been ...

. Following the negotiations, the FDP entered the government as part of a coalition agreement, and Buschmann took office as Justice Minister in the

Scholz cabinet The Scholz cabinet (German: ''Kabinett Scholz'', ) is the current cabinet of Germany, led by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The cabinet is composed of Scholz's Social Democratic Party, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party, an a ...

. Early in his tenure, Buschmann presented a draft law that would do away with a Nazi-era law forbidding doctors from providing information about

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

s. Shortly after, he introduced legislation that would cut the red tape required for changing a person's name and gender, abolishing a controversial 1980 law regulating the process.

Other activities

Academy of European Law The Academy of European Law (known by the German acronym ERA for “Europäische Rechtsakademie”) is an international centre for training and debate for lawyers. A public foundation based in Trier, Germany, its objective is to promote the awar ...

(ERA), Ex-Officio Member of the Governing Board (since 2021) * German Forum for Crime Prevention (DFK), Ex-Officio Chair of the Board of Trustees (since 2021) * Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, Ex-Officio Chairman of the Board of Trustees (since 2021)Board of Trustees
Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation. *

International Bar Association The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA currently has a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associat ...

(IBA), Member *

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, Member * Association of German Foundations, Member of the Parliamentary Advisory Board (2009-2013)

References

External links

*
Bundestag biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buschmann, Marco 1977 births Living people Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Members of the Bundestag 2021–2025 Members of the Bundestag 2017–2021 Members of the Bundestag 2009–2013 Members of the Bundestag for the Free Democratic Party (Germany) Justice ministers of Germany