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The European Constitution: Notes on the National Meeting of German Public Law Assistants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Daniel Thym

Extract

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Each academic culture has its own customs and rituals. In German public law, the annual meeting of public law professors is much more than a conference. Together with their Swiss and Austrian counterparts, German public law professors have met annually since 1922 (with the exception of 1932-48) to discuss contributions carefully prepared and presented by selective speakers, which are meticulously analyzed by their audience. Failure in the eyes of colleagues may ruin an academic career, although participants report that the traditional rigidity has been eased in recent years. Given the prestige and exclusivity of the meeting, it is not surprising that it was copied by Germany's university assistants in public law, who under the German university system often have to wait until the end of their thirties to step out from the shadow of their “academic fathers” and obtain professional independence as professors in their own right. Thus, “young” German public law assistants – in partnership with their Austrian and Swiss counterparts – have also been meeting regularly over the past 45 years to debate various topics of public law and position themselves within the aspiring next generation of public lawyers; and the 2005 meeting in the Westphalian city of Bielefeld signals that the debate on German public law will indeed be enriched by some promising new scholars.

Type
Articles
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , 01 April 2005 , pp. 793 - 803
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 The proceedings are closed to outsiders; the reports and minutes of the discussion are published in the series Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer VVDStRL. More information on the association is available online at http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/dreier/staatsrechtslehrer.Google Scholar

2 Weiler, Joseph H.H., In Defence of the Status Quo: Europe's Constitutional Sonderweg, in European Constitutionalism Beyond the State 7 (Weiler, Joseph H.H./Wind, Marlene eds. 2003).Google Scholar

3 See for example Ingolf Pernice, Multilevel Constitutionalism and the Treaty of Amsterdam: European Constitution-Making Revisited?, 36 Common Market Law Review (CML Rev.) 703 (1999) who uses the term ‘multilevel constitutionalism’ to describe in English his concept of Verfassungsverbund presented at the 2000 meeting of the “senior” public lawyers in Leipzig, published as Ingolf Pernice, Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht, 60 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung Deutscher Staatsrechtslehrer (VVDStRL) 148, 163-86 (2001). On the interaction of the different layers of government, see also Mayer, Franz, Kompetenzüberschreitung und Letztentscheidung (2000).Google Scholar

4 Grimm, Dieter, Does Europe Need a Constitution?, 1 European Law Journal (ELJ) 282 (1995).Google Scholar

5 Haack's thesis 6, published beforehand at http://www.assistententagung.de.Google Scholar

6 On various occasions, Dröge explicitly aligned himself with the writing of Dieter Grimm (note 4) in this respect.Google Scholar

7 See for his paper on “European and national identity: integration through constitutional law” Armin von Bogdandy, Europäische und nationale Identität: Integration durch Verfassungsrecht?, 62 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung Deutscher Staatsrechtslehrer (VVDStRL) 156-193 (2003); of course, we will have to wait for Dröge's written version to identify the exact degree of influence.Google Scholar

8 See Häberle, Peter, Verfassungslehre als Kulturwissenschaft (2ND ed. 1998); for more, see Hoffmann“ Häberle and the World of the Constitutional State, 4 German Law Journal 61-69 (2003).Google Scholar

9 See among many Miguel Poiares Maduro, Europe and the Constitution: What if this Is as Good as It Gets?, in European Constitutionalism Beyond the State, 74-102 (Weiler, Joseph H.H./Wind, Marlene eds. 2003), Paul Craig, Constitutions, Constitutionalism, and the European Union, 7 European Law Journal 125-150 (2001), Ingolf Pernice (note 3), 155-163 and my contribution: Daniel Thym, European Constitutional Theory and the Post-Nice Process, in The Treaty Of Nice, Enlargement and Constitutional Reform 147-180 (Andenas, Mads/Usher, John eds. 2003). Of course, the written version of Krisch's contribution, which is not available yet, might shed more light on this question.Google Scholar

10 See, in this respect, also his contribution “American hegemony and the liberal revolution in international law”: Nico Krisch, Amerikanische Hegemonie und liberale Revolution im Völkerrecht, 43 Der Staat 267-297 (2004).Google Scholar

11 See the influential collection of essays in Hobsbawn, Eric/Ranger, Terence (eds.): The Invention of Tradition (1983).Google Scholar

12 In case one is in need of a graphic or digitalized reproduction of the European flag, possibly in combination with emotional settings such as children playing on the beach, one does not need to search long: the European Commission is happy to provide them free of charge at http://www.europa.eu.int/abc/symbols/emblem/index_de.htm.Google Scholar

13 http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Oeuvres/Music_OdeToJoy.html.Google Scholar

14 Art. I-8 ConstEU states that the anthem “shall be based” on this piece of music, which made Krausnick consider whether the Union's anthem is an instrumental version (probably the correct answer) or comprises also the lyrics, and if so whether only the original German language version shall be the authentic version (which would conflict with the Union's motto…).Google Scholar

15 But see the heavy critique of Europe's iconography by Haltern, Ulrich, Pathos and Patina: The Failure and Promise of Constitutionalism in the European Imagination, 9 European Law Journal 14, 30 (2003).Google Scholar

16 The preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights states in French, English and most other linguistic versions that Europe is conscious of its “spiritual and moral heritage” or “patrimoine spirituel et moral”, while – amongst others – the German and the Polish version include a direct reference to religion when mentioning Europe's “geistig-religiösen und sittlichen Erbe” or “duchowo-religijnego i moralnego dziedzictwa”.Google Scholar

17 It should be noted that the reference to the “common destiny” of the European citizens is no innovation of the Constitution, but did already feature in the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steal Community of 18 April 1950, the legal “birth certificate” of European integration, which expired in July 2002 and stated in its preamble that it was resolved “to lay the foundations for institutions which will give direction to a destiny henceforward shared.“Google Scholar

18 On this aspect of European integration and its incorporation in the overall framework of European constitutionalism see Thym, Daniel, Ungleichzeitigkeit und europäisches Verfassungsrecht (2004) – online information at http://www.thym.de/daniel/ungleichzeitigkeit.Google Scholar

19 See the original proposal in a study mandated by the European Commission: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Legal Studies at the European University Institute, Draft Basic Treaty of the European Union (2000).Google Scholar

20 See Häberle, Peter, Die offene Gesellschaft der Verfassungsinterpreten (1975), in Peter Häberle, Verfassung als öffentlicher Prozess 155 (3rd Ed. 1998).Google Scholar

21 Decision of 29 May 1974, Case BvL 52/71 Solange I, 37 BVerfGE 271 (for a English translation see 540 Common Market Law Reports [1974]) and Decision of 22 October 1986, Case 2 BvR 197/83 Solange II, 73 BVerfGE 339.Google Scholar

22 On the solange-jurisprudence, the Charter and the ECHR Daniel Thym, Charter of Fundamental Rights: Competition or Consistency of Human Rights Protection in Europe?, XI Finnish Yearbook of International Law 11-36 (2002).Google Scholar

23 http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/treaties.htm.Google Scholar

24 These Articles “provide guidance” for the interpretation of the CFR according to the preamble of the Constitution's part 2 and Art. 112(7) ConstEU.Google Scholar

25 See Bundesverfassungsgericht, Judgement of 14 October 2004, Case 2 BvR 1481/04 – for the decision in German and English, go to: http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rs20041014_2bvr148104.html; it has also been published in Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 3407 (2004).Google Scholar

26 On the integration of international law in the EC/EU legal order see ECJ, Case 181/73, Haegeman, 1974 ECR 449.Google Scholar

27 The WISH is co-organized for Ph.D. candidates and young academics who have obtained their Ph.D. recently by the European Law Journal, the University Aix-Marseille III and the Colleague of Europe at Natolin in Aix-en-Provence. For its 2005 call for papers see http://pro.wanadoo.fr/ceric/colloques/RIJC/call2005.doc.Google Scholar