Das nationale Interesse überwiegt

Although it is related to an international affair between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America, this critique of a recent decision by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany is written in German because I don’t feel comfortable expressing my juristic thoughts concerning this case in English. Reasoning about Germany’s constitution is best done in German because that’s the language the constitution and most literature about it is written in. (This is probably true for any nation state.)

Mit seinem Beschluss vom 13. Oktober 2016 (2 BvE 2/15, Pressemitteilung Nr 84/2016 vom 15. November 2016) hat der zweite Senat des Bundesverfassungsgerichts (BVerfG) die Anträge der Bundestagsfraktionen DIE LINKE und BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN im Organstreitverfahren zwischen der Bundesregierung und dem „NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss“ (bzw dem Bundestag) um die Herausgabe der sogenannten „NSA-Selektorenlisten“ entscheiden, dass „im besonderen Fall der NSA-Selektorenlisten […] das Vorlageinteresse des Untersuchungsausschusses zurückzutreten [hat]“. Der Beschluss – der aus Geheimschutzgründen ohne eine mündliche Verhaldnung zustande kam – überzeugt leider nicht. Der Senat scheint sich in erheblichem Maße von politischen „Sachzwängen“ überzeugen haben zu lassen. Bereits die im Beschluss angeführten juristischen Gegenargumente dürften die Argumente, die das Ergebnis stützen sollen, überwiegen. Dazu kommt, dass von letzteren meines Erachtens nicht alle unwidersprochen bleiben können.

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A General Prohibition for Teachers in Public Schools to Wear a Headscarf is Incompatible with the German Constitution

One of Germany’s worst and most freedom-denying pieces of law has become a thing of the past. Because of a mature insight on behalf of the responsible politicians to revoke unjust legislation? No way! This is not how politics work in Germany, sadly. Instead, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (BVerfG), one more time, had to settle the mess politics has left behind.

In a court decision from January 27 (1 BvR 471/10, 1 BvR 1181/10) that was published today, the BVerfG has ruled that legislation by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) that prohibited non-Christian teachers to dress according to their religious believes is partially incompatible with the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (GG) and partially has to be applied in a restricted manner to be compliant with the GG.

Recent Freedom-Related Supreme Court Decisions in Germany

In this post, I’d like to very briefly discuss a few freedom-related decisions by the Federal Court of Justice of Germany (BGH) and the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (BVerfG) made during this year’s November and December for which I did not have time to publish more thorough discussions earlier. The decisions are ordered by the dates of their press releases (PR) which are sometimes substantially younger than the actual decisions.