GERMAN CONSTITUTION
Human Dignity Promised a Seat
The Grundgesetz begins with human dignity and makes fundamental rights directly binding on Germany’s legislature, executive and judiciary.
Germany should not appear as an appendix to the American constitutional story. Its Basic Law arose from a different history, assigns rights and institutional duties differently and provides its own routes for challenging public authority.
Article 1 — Human dignity and binding force
Human dignity is inviolable. Article 1 also makes the fundamental rights directly binding on legislative, executive and judicial authority.
Articles 2 and 3 — Freedom, bodily integrity and equality
These provisions protect personal development, life, physical integrity and liberty, establish equality before the law and prohibit specified forms of discrimination.
Articles 4–6 — Faith, expression, scholarship and family
Freedom of faith and conscience, expression and information, press, arts, scholarship, research and teaching, together with constitutional protection for marriage, family, parents and children.
Articles 8 and 9 — Assembly and association
Peaceful assembly and association, including special protection for coalitions formed to safeguard and improve working and economic conditions. The text uses different rules about who may invoke particular guarantees.
Articles 10–13 — Private life, movement, work and home
Communications privacy, freedom of movement, occupational freedom and protection of the home, each subject to its own constitutional limitations.
Article 16a — Asylum
A constitutional right of asylum accompanied by substantial textual and legal qualifications governing who may invoke it and how claims are handled.
Article 19 — Limits and judicial recourse
Article 19 addresses restrictions on basic rights. Article 19(4) guarantees recourse to the courts when a person’s rights are violated by public authority.
Articles 20 and 20a — Constitutional order and responsibility
Democracy, social federalism, popular sovereignty, the rule of law and state responsibility for the natural foundations of life and animals.
Articles 33 and 38 — Civic status, public office and representation
Civic rights, equal access to public office and the constitutional principles governing Bundestag elections.
Article 79(3) — The Eternity Clause
The federal structure and the principles laid down in Articles 1 and 20 cannot be removed through the ordinary constitutional-amendment process.
The TMS questions
What right or seat does the article protect? Who may invoke it? What duty does it impose on government? What limitations are permitted? Which court interpretation controls? What remedy exists when public authority violates it?
A constitutional guarantee is not measured only by its wording.
It is measured by whether the person it protects can reach an effective remedy.