Human Dignity in the Mechanics of Claims

The mechanics of claims focusses predominantly on the claim to life. The claim to life is rooted in the autonomy principle, just like other specific claims. Still, the mechanics of claims does not have a systematic place for the fundamental negation of the status as an autonomous being as such. It is, however, the proctiction of the status as such, which is at the center of the protection of human dignity in German constitutional law. Looked at it from this perspective, the protection of human dignity as the protection of the status of an autonomous human being, appears to be a blind spot of the mechanics of claims. The comment attempts to show, how this blindspot leads to inconsistencies in the mechanics of claims, and how they might be ameliorated if human dignity is considered as an absolute right independent of the claims to life.

Tenancy Laws in Berlin

Berlin is facing large increases in rent levels over the last decades. To overcome pressure on the market, the Senate of the city has repeatedly introduced rent controls. While the German Constitutional Court has found the latest rent-controlling legislation, the Price Ceiling Act of 2020 to be violating German constitutional law and hence invalid and void, there is strong economic evidence for why rent controls do more harm than good and after all even lead to a decrease in housing provided. To provide for affordable housing, the City of Berlin needs to pursue other measures that stipulate the construction of new housing: the increase and acceleration of the granting of building permits, release of shallow land and actively engage in municipal construction.

The Indonesian Constitution Read with German Eyes

The Indonesian Constitution offers many interesting insights to a German constitutional scholar. The most striking feature is the balance between the unitarian state and the natural diversity of Indonesia. In Germany, the state architecture reflects regional diversity in its federal framework, whereas Indonesia combines the unitarian state with various decentralising elements. This balance between unitarianism and regional diversity is probably the most conspicuous feature of the Indonesian Constitution and appears to be a suitable compromise between the conflicting aims of stabilising the state and the nation on the one hand and accommodating the geographic, demographic and cultural differences within the country on the other. Another striking feature is the presidential system, which is quite the opposite of the parliamentary system of the German Constitution. Other points that, from the perspective of German constitutional law, invite comparison are the constitutional provisions about the legal system,Indonesia’s constitutional monotheism, which is quite the opposite of the German idea of the state being strictly neutral in religious affairs, and human rights.

Der eigentumsrechtliche Wertschutz von Anteilsrechten

Property protection is provided by national law as well as international law. The study seeks for an explanation regarding the divergent approaches to the protection of shareholders in cases of reflective loss provided for in German constitutional law and various fields of public international law. This is done by way of a comparison of the German approach with those found in the law of aliens, in the European Convention on Human Rights and under international investment law. This results in the finding that approaches of international law partly fail to establish the necessary bonds to recognized concepts of national law.

Prohibition of Censorship as a Guarantee of Freedom of Mass Media in Russia and Germany

The prohibition of censorship as a fundamental legal guarantee of constitutional freedom of the media in Russia and Germany is considered. The author carries out a comparative analysis of the understanding of the essence of censorship in domestic and German constitutional law, as well as the features of state-legal regulation of relevant social relations arising from such an understanding.

Die fiskalpolitische Integration

In the course of the financial and sovereign debt crisis, the academic discourse in European legal studies shifted to questions of economic, monetary and budgetary policy, quickly focusing on issues of solidarity-based distribution of sovereign debt, respectively its communitarization. Against the background of these diverse debates, this paper examines the integration potentials of the Lisbon Treaty with respect to fiscal integration. In doing so, it approaches the subject of the study by elaborating its integration potential, which is then measured against the standards of both primary law and German constitutional law.

Das Grundrecht auf sexuelle Selbstbestimmung

The thesis deals with the right to sexual autonomy in German constitutional law. The author shows that the approaches adopted by the Federal Constitutional Court and legal scholarship do not adequately reflect social change in the area of sexualities and develops a legal concept of the right that emphasizes on personal autonomy and sexual consent.

Der Ausschluss verfassungsfeindlicher Parteien von der staatlichen Parteienfinanzierung nach Art. 21 Abs. 3 GG

Since 2017, Germany’s Basic Law has allowed anti-constitutional parties to be excluded from state party funding. Such exclusion from funding is at odds with the right to equal political opportunities, which derives from the principle of democracy. This thesis examines whether such exclusion from funding is permissible under German constitutional law. In particular, it takes account of the principle of democracy—guaranteed by the ‘eternity clause’—and the concept of ‘militant democracy’. The thesis also considers the issue in question from a European law perspective and, in addition to conducting a legal analysis, examines whether distorting the competition among political parties is justifiable with respect to democratic theory.

Maßstäbe demokratischer Legitimation

The concept of democratic legitimization is used in various disciplines and also in different legal contexts. However, it is regularly not a matter of one and the same legal standard; rather, German constitutional law and EU primary law appear to contain very different approaches. There are also certain shifts in discourse between jurisprudence and legal scholarship. The thesis differentiates methodologically and disciplinarily in order to put the different positions in relation to each other and to gain a better overview of the discourse.