[JURIST] A German lawmaker has launched a challenge to the new EU reform treaty [JURIST news archive], properly known as the Treaty of Lisbon [official website; PDF text], asking that Germany's Federal Constitutional Court [official website] rule on whether it is legal, according to Monday media reports. A lawyer for Peter Gauweiler [personal website, in German] of the Christian Social Union [party website] told German news magazine Focus that the treaty would weaken national parliaments [Focus report, in German].

The court challenge may delay German approval of the treaty past the deadline for it to enter into effect in January 2009, as German President Horst Kohler [official website, in German] is unlikely to approve the document while the case is pending. The German parliament is currently scheduled to ratify the treaty in May. EUobserver has more.