Prof. Dr. h.c. Rudolf Mellinghoff is President of the Federal Supreme Finance Court. He studied at the University of Münster and served his postgraduate legal internship in Baden-Württemberg. Between 1984 and 1987, he was a Research Assistant at the University of Heidelberg, becoming a Judge in the Finance Court of Düsseldorf in 1987. From 1987 to 1991, he was a Research Fellow at the Federal Constitutional Court. He was appointed Judge at the Finance Court of Düsseldorf in 1989. Rudolf Mellinghoff was Head of Department at the Ministry of Justice of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between July 1991 and June 1992, and was appointed Presiding Judge of the Finance Court in 1996. In a second full-time position, he served as Judge of the Higher Administrative Court of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between 1992 and 1996. From 1995 to 1996, he was also a member of the Constitutional Court of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and from 1997 to 2001 served as Judge at the Federal Supreme Finance Court. From January 2001 to October 2011, Rudolf Mellinghoff served as Justice in the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court. Since then he has been President of the Federal Supreme Court of Finance. In 2006, Rudolf Mellinghoff was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Greifswald, and in 2007 from the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. In 2011, he was awarded the Grand Merit Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is currently Vice Chair of the Deutsche Steuerjuristische Gesellschaft and Chair of the Advisory Council of the Berliner Steuergespräche e.V. He is a member of the Judicial Integrity Group, and from 2009 to 2011 was President of the German Section of the International Commission of Jurists, becoming Vice-President in 2012.