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Government Assistance in the Exercise of Basic Rights (Procedure and Organization)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Erhard Denninger

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For a brief period - during the first half of the 1970s - it appeared as though the fundamental debate concerning the function of basic rights (to a certain extent an individual-oriented reprise of the Rechtsstaat-social state controversy of the 1950s and 1960s was coming down to the alternatives “Basic Rights: (only) Defensive Rights” or “Basic Rights: (also) Rights to Participation and Claims to Performance” Peter Häberle's demand (made at the 1971 Constitutional Law Teachers' Conference) that the base-line substantive legal status of basic rights be supplemented by a “status activus processualis” (in the sense of a “government-performative due process”), and the Federal Constitutional Court's (FCC's) first Numerus-Clausus decision (of 18 July 1972) and its Term Abortion decision (of 25 February 1975), with its recognition of the state's “comprehensive” duty to protect (and promote!) unborn life, all mark advanced positions in theory and judicial decision-making. At the same time, new life was given to the discussion concerning “basic social rights” (such as the “right to work”, “to shelter”, “to education”, “to social security”, etc.), and new and expanded forms of social protection, in short: concerning the concretization of the social state principle. Yet the welfare-state, “social-liberal” reform impulse soon ran up against political-economic limits: the “feasibility proviso” allowed the merely “ideal standard” character of subjective performance rights to become all too quickly apparent.

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Articles
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 1: Critical Legal Thought: An American-German Debate—Republication [with a new Introduction] Twenty-Five Years Later — , 01 January 2011 , pp. 430 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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2 Outline of the development of basic law function in Erhard Denninger, Staatsrecht 2 (1979) 136 e, 162; also see, Kommentar zum Grundgesetz (Reihe Alternativkommentare), Before Art. 1 GG, Rn. 1-30.Google Scholar

3 Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court - 39 BVerfGE 1 (42). decision-making.4 At the same time, new life was given to the discussion concerning “basic social rights” (such as the “right to work”, “to shelter”, “to education”, “to social security”, etc.), and new and expanded forms of social protection, in short: concerning the concretization of the social state principle.5 Yet the welfare-state, “social-liberal” reform impulse soon ran up against political-economic limits: the “feasibility proviso” allowed the merely “ideal standard” character of subjective performance rights to become all too quickly apparent.6 Google Scholar

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29 Ossenbühl, Thus, supra, note 8, 192; similarly concerned is Grimm supra, note 11, 868.Google Scholar

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42 56 BVerfGE 216 (236); see also dissenting opinion by Judge W. Böhmer BVerfGE 49, 220, 228; 243: “Procedural law serves not only the aim of ensuring orderly proceedings but also in the sphere of relevant basic law is the medium enabling the holder of basic rights to obtain his constitutional rights. Accordingly, where several interpretations of procedural law are possible, that one should be chosen which empowers the court to make basic law effective”.Google Scholar

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69 With reference to criminal proceedings, see 51 BVerfGE 324, further 42 BVerfGE 64 (76), dissenting opinion 85.Google Scholar

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71 The five positions are also quoted by Laubinger, supra, note 8, 73, without claiming exhaustivenessGoogle Scholar

72 53 BVerfGE 131 (144)Google Scholar

73 35 BVerfGE 35, 382 (401); 56, 216 (241)Google Scholar

74 42 BVerfGE 42, 64 (73)Google Scholar

75 See 39 BVerfGE 39, 197 (204).Google Scholar

76 See 56 BVerfGE 56, 216 (238); applies similarly to committees and courts according to the revised conscientious objection law.Google Scholar

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