Effect of withdrawal of referring court's application on abstract norm control proceedings

The Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the proceedings, effectively allowing the applicant (the referring court) to prevail through the termination of the action following the withdrawal of its application. The case involved a constitutional complaint or abstract norm control challenge (2 BvL 10/22) concerning a statutory provision, which the referring court initiated and subsequently rescinded via a separate decision on February 20, 2026. The decisive legal basis for the order was the procedural doctrine that a constitutional proceeding is mandatorily dismissed (Einstellung) when the initiating application is formally withdrawn by the applicant, rendering a substantive judgment on the validity of the norm unnecessary.