Fundamental rights in the German Constitution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fundamental Rights in the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Grundrechte) are a set of rights guaranteed to everyone in Germany and partially to German people only through their Federal Constitution, the Grundgesetz and the constitutions of some of the States of Germany. In the Federal Constitution, the majority of the Grundrechte are contained in the first title, Articles 1 to 19 of the Grundgesetz (GG). These rights have constitutional status, binding each of the country's constitutional institutions. In the event that these rights are violated and a remedy is denied by other courts, the constitution provides for an appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) (Art. 93 Abs. I Nr. 4a GG).
According to this article, the Constitutional Court is entitled to hear appeals concerning not just the Grundrechte contained in Arts. 1-19, but also Art. 20 Abs. I, 33, 38, 101, 103 and 104. These rights are also therefore referred to as grundrechtsgleiche Rechte (rights equal to fundamental rights) or colloquially also as fundamental rights.
In addition to the Grundrechte, the Basic Law guarantees a number of other public rights, such as the uniform application of federal law between states (Art.28 (2)(1) GG) and the independence of the church (Art. 137 (3) of the Weimar Constitution and Art. 140 GG). These however are not Grundrechte as they are not contained under the first title of the constitution or in the appeal mechanism to the Federal Constitutional Court.
There are also lists of fundamental rights in the majority of state constitutions, which vary slightly from one another but are never capable of ruling out a Grundrecht. Landesrechte (i.e. rights guaranteed by state constitutions) which mirror Bundesrechte (those guaranteed by the Federal Constitution) are therefore disregarded in favour of the Bundesrechte. Many state constitutions of the Old states of Germany which were written after the Federal Basic Law do not contain their own lists of fundamental rights at all; the New states of Germany, however, do contain lists of fundamental rights, which incorporate both the civil and political rights of the Federal Basic Law and the social rights guaranteed by the erstwhile Constitution of the German Democratic Republic.