Category: Germany
-
The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution
Mila Versteeg and I have just posted to SSRN a paper that might be of interest to readers of this blog entitled “The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution“. It follows up on an earlier article, imminently forthcoming in the California Law Review, in which we took a very bird’s eye view of the…
-
A Comparativist Joins the German Constitutional Court
The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany will welcome a new judge in 2011: Prof. Dr. Susanna Baer, an enthusiastic comparativist whose work probes a number of fields including human rights, gender equality, law & religion, and legal theory. Baer, who most recently held a professorship at the Humboldt University Berlin, has written a number of…
-
“… far more onerous than the restrictions found in this Nation.”
In McDonald v. Chicago, Justice Stevens stated in dissent that “the experience of other advanced democracies . . . undercuts the notion that an expansive right to keep and bear arms is intrinsic to ordered liberty. Many of these countries place restrictions on the possession, use, and carriage of firearms far more onerous than the…
-
Greece, the Euro, and the FCC
The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has denied an application for a temporary injunction to stop Germany’s contribution to the aid package for Greece (German decision here, English press release here). The challenged law authorized the federal government to guarantee loans up to 22.4 billion euros.
-
New President at the FCC & Some Thoughts on the Appointment Process
Last week, Hans-Jürgen Papier retired from his position as President of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) and chief judge of the First Senate upon expiration of his 12 year term on the court. His successor as President is the former Vice-President of the Court Andreas Voßkuhle (FCC press release in German here).
-
More on Constitutional Concerns regarding EU Data Retention Directive
Readers will likely recall that the German Federal Constitutional Court earlier this month held unconstitutional a German law requiring the retention of certain telecommunication data (German decision here, German press reports in English here and here). The law that was invalidated transposed Directive 2006/24/EC, passed largely in response to the Madrid and London bombings, into…
-
Constitutional Court Censors German Government
It’s been a tough week for the German government. It was handed defeats by the constitutional court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in two separate cases touching on the government’s authority to withhold information from parliament.In 2006, the German parliament — on an initiative by opposition parties — constituted a parliamentary commission to investigate allegations that the German government…