courts (see BVerfGE 72, 39 (43-44); 90, 128 (136-137)). This is intended to prevent
the Federal Constitutional Court from handing down high-impact rulings on an insecure factual and legal basis (see BVerfGE 79, 1 (20); 97, 157 (165)).
Accordingly, the complainants re 2 must first of all take recourse to the nonconstitutional courts to obtain legal protection against the provisions of the Constitution Protection Act on management of personal data which is stored in electronic
case files.
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The complainants re 2 address their complaint against the storage of personal data
that is no longer needed, which in their view is provided by the Constitution Protection
Act. How extensively the statute rules out the deletion of such data however initially
requires clarification under non-constitutional law by the authorities and by the nonconstitutional courts. The wording of § 10 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution
Protection Act at any rate does not rule out applying the existing deletion rules in this
provision also to data which is contained in electronic case files. Moreover, the
statute does not contain any explicit provisions on the management of electronic case
files that are no longer needed, so that the legal situation is also unclear in this respect.
162
The complainants re 2 can be expected to have the situation under nonconstitutional law clarified by the non-constitutional courts which have jurisdiction
therefor. In particular, they are not prevented de facto from taking recourse to the
courts simply because they were not able to obtain knowledge of the data storage relating to them. In contradistinction to the view held by the complainants re 2, it does
not necessarily emerge from the wording of § 14.1 of the North Rhine-Westphalia
Constitution Protection Act that personal data kept in electronic case files is not covered from the outset by the claim to information regulated in this provision, so that one
may not rule out that information must be provided in this respect. What is more, by
the complaint addressed against § 8.4 sentence 2 of the North Rhine-Westphalia
Constitution Protection Act, the complainants re 2 do not intend to avert a specific act
of encroachment on fundamental rights which could only to a limited degree be remedied by subsequent legal protection. Rather, they wish to claim substantive deletion
rights which they can enforce in the proceedings before the non-constitutional courts.
163
VII.
Insofar as the complainants re 1 complain of the alleged unconstitutionality of § 13
of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act, their constitutional complaint is inadmissible because they are not directly affected. § 13 of the North RhineWestphalia Constitution Protection Act permits the constitution protection authority to
place data in joint files which are maintained according to federal or Land law. Only
on the basis of these other provisions can measures be effected which could be regarded as an encroachment on fundamental rights. The opening provision of § 13 of
the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act, which is rendered ineffective
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