Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:38:46.394Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Freedom, Security and (the) Public(ity): Notes on the 2008 Heidelberg Conference of German-speaking Public Law Assistants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Matthias Koetter

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the last week of February 2008, the University Assistants of Public Law from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland came together in Heidelberg for their annual conference to discuss “Security, Freedom and (the) Public(ity).” A better date for the meeting could not have been chosen; on the day the conference started, the German Constitutional Court declared online searches by German intelligence agencies to be unconstitutional and came up with a new dimension of human rights protection for the privacy of computer network systems. This pathbreaking jurisprudence was omnipresent at the conference; it had already been in the opening-speech by Justice Brun-Otto Bryde (Gießen), a member of the First Senate of the Constitutional Court, which was to render its decision the very next day. It was brought up in numerous discussions during the conference and it was the main topic on the panel discussion with Paul Kirchhof (Heidelberg), a former Justice in the same Senate who was known as the “Professor from Heidelberg” during Angela Merkel's 2006 election campaign, and Fredrik Roggan, a Berlin lawyer and chairman of the civil rights association “Humanistische Union,” who argued the case before the Court. Perhaps it was all a coincidence, but questions of freedom and security have remained on the everyday agenda, in a political context as well as constitutional debates, ever since September 11, 2001.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 5 , 01 May 2008 , pp. 737 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 See Assistententagung Öffentliches Recht available at www.assistententagung.de (containing the program of the conference and for abstracts of the contributions. The conference proceedings will be published this summer). For notes on earlier conferences, see Daniel Thym, The European Constitution: Notes on the National Meeting of German Public Law Assistants, 6 German Law Journal 793 (2005), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=593; Marten Breuer, Law and Medicine: Notes on the Meeting of German-Speaking Public Law Assistants in Vienna (2006), 7 German Law Journal 445 (2006), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=722; and Lukas Bauer and Konrad Lachmayer, Networks in Public Law: Notes on the 47th Meeting (2007) of German-Speaking Public Law Assistants in Berlin, 8 German Law Journal 1069 (2007), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=872.Google Scholar

2 Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court), 1 BvR 370/07 and 1 BvR 595/07 (Feb. 27, 2008), at http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20080227_1bvr037007.html.Google Scholar

3 BVerfGE 109, 279 (Mar. 3, 2004) (Acoustic surveillance of private living space); BVerfGE 113, 348 (July 27, 2005) (Preventive surveillance of telecommunications); BVerfGE 115, 118 (Feb. 15, 2006) (Air Security Code); BVerfGE 115, 320 (April 4, 2006) (Data Profiling); Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court), 2 BvR 1345/03 (Aug. 22, 2006), at http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rk20060822_2bvr134503.html (Imsi-catcher); and Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court), 1 BvR 2074/05 and 1 BvR 1254/07 (Mar. 11, 2008), at http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20080311_1bvr207405.html (License plate scan).Google Scholar

4 See Matthias Koetter, Pfade des Sicherheitsrechts (Paths of security law argumentation) 281–352 (2008)Google Scholar

5 See Carl Schmitt, Die Diktatur (Dictatorship) (1921). For the update of these conceptions, see Giorgio Agamben, Stato di eccezione (State of Exception) (2003).Google Scholar

6 See Lepsius, Oliver, Human Dignity and the Downing of Aircraft: The German Federal Constitutional Court Strikes Down a Prominent Anti-terrorism Provision in the New Air-transport Security Act, 7 German Law Journal 761 (2007), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=756.Google Scholar

7 From a political science perspective see Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (1999); Herfried Münkler, Die Neuen Kriege (The New Wars) (2002).Google Scholar

8 See Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, available at www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm Google Scholar

9 See David Kennedy, Of Law and War (2006) (on the fuzzy games of linguistic warfare); and Kemmerer, Alexandra, Law as an Anagram of War, Global View No. 4, pp. 24–25 (2006); Silja Vöneky, The Fight against Terrorism and the Rules of International Law: Comment on Papers and Speeches of John B. Bellinger, Chief Legal Advisor to the United States State Department, 8 German Law Journal 747 (2007), available at http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=841; and John B. Bellinger III, Legal Issues in the War on Terrorism: Reply to Silja Vöneky, 8 German Law Journal 871 (2007), available at http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=856.Google Scholar

10 See Claus Kreß, Völkerstrafrecht der dritten Generation gegen transnationale Gewalt Privater? (Third Generation International Criminal Law against the Transnational Violence by Private Actors?), Die Macht und das Recht. Beiträge zum Völkerrecht und Völkerstrafrecht, in Power and the Law. Essays on the International and International Criminal Law 323, 397–413 (Gerd Hankel ed., 2008) (Conceptual conturs are sketched).Google Scholar

11 See, Andreas Anter, Die Macht der Ordnung (The power of order) 100–108 (2004) (discussing Ordnungsvertrauen (order confidence) and Ordnungssicherheit (order certainty)).Google Scholar

12 See Koetter, Matthias, Integration durch Recht? Die Steuerungsfähigkeit des Rechts im Bereich seiner Geltungsvoraussetzungen (Integration through law? The governance potentials of law in the range of its impact preconditions), in Integration und Recht (Integration and the Law) 31–52 (Konrad Sahlfeld et al. eds., 2004).Google Scholar

13 BVerfGE 102, 370 (Dec. 19, 2000) (Status of Jehovah's Witnesses). See Peer Zumbansen, From the Outside Looking In: The Jehovah's Witnesses’ Struggle for Quasi-Public Status under Germany's Incorporation Law, 2 German law Journal No. 1 (2001), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/-past_issues.php?id=47.Google Scholar

14 According to Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of Apr. 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, OJ 2004 Nr. L 158 at 77.Google Scholar

15 Council Directive 2003/109/EC of Nov. 25 2003, (concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents).Google Scholar

16 For the characterisation of the European Union as a “fortification, “see Katja Ziegler, Integration und Ausgrenzung im Lichte der Migrationspolitik der Europaeschen Union – die „Festung Europa”? (Integration and social exclusion in the light of EU migration politics – the fortification Europe?), in Integration und Recht (Integration and the Law), supra note 12, at 127–179.Google Scholar

17 According to Council Regulation 2004/2007/EC of 26 October 2004 establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union, OJ 2004 Nr. L 349 at 1–11. See also Andreas Fischer-Lescano/Timo Tohidipur, Europäisches Grenzkontrollregime. Rechtsrahmen der europäischen Grenzschutzagentur FRONTEX (European Border Control Regime. The Legal Framework for the European Border Police Agency FRONTEX), 67 ZAÖRV 1219–1276 (2007).Google Scholar

18 According to the Regulation 2007/863/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 11, 2007 establishing a mechanism for the creation of Rapid Border Intervention Teams and amending Council Regulation 2004/2007/EC as regards that mechanism and regulating the tasks and powers of guest officers EC regulation, OJ 2007 Nr. L 199 at 30–39.Google Scholar

19 European Court of Justice, decision of Sept. 13, 2007 (C-439/05 P and C-454/05 P) available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUri Serv/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62005J0439:DE:HTMLGoogle Scholar

20 See Ralf Poscher, Gefahrenabwehr. Eine dogmatische Rekonstruktion (Danger prevention law. A dogmatic reconstruction) 146 (1999).Google Scholar

21 See Koetter, supra note 4, at 241–249.Google Scholar

22 Christoph Gusy, Gewährleistung von Freiheit und Sicherheit im Lichte unterschiedlicher Verfassungsverständnisse (The Provision of Freedom and Security in the Light of different Conceptions of Constitution), in Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtlehrer (Publications of the Association of German Public Law Teachers), 63 VVDStRL 60, 81 (2004) (translation by M. K.).Google Scholar

23 See also Andreas von Arnauld, Grundrechtsfreiheit zur Gotteslästerung? (A Constitutional Right to Blasphemy?), in: Josef Isensee (ed.): Religionsbeschimpfung. Der rechtliche Schutz des Heiligen (Harassment of Religions. The legal Protection of the Sacred) 63–104 (2007).Google Scholar

24 BVerfGE 65, 1 (Dec. 15, 1983) (Census of population law).Google Scholar

25 BVerfGE 109, 279 (March 3, 2004) (Acoustic surveillance of private living space).Google Scholar

26 BVerfGE 7, 198 (Jan. 15, 1958) (Lüth); most recently BVerfGE 102, 347 (Dec. 12, 2000) (Benetton).Google Scholar

27 On the approval of the fellow citizens in the society that share the same scarce goods and obey the same laws, see Cord Schmelzle, Governance und Legitimität (Governance and Legitimacy), in Gemeinsame Blicke hinter den Staat. “Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit” als transdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt (Looking beyond the State together. “Governance in Areas of limited Statehood” as a Transdisciplinary Research Project) (Sybille De La Rosa, Ulrike Hoeppner, Matthias Koetter eds., forthcoming 2008).Google Scholar