Final note
After the end of the course this website has been
finished. It will stay available for the purpose of deepening and repetition.
Thank you for your interest and commitment. You are always welcome to contact me
for any comments or questions. With best wishes for your future studies, yours
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmitz
Course
Description
Within the legal order of a state,
public law is the law that regulates the relationship of the individual to the
state and other holders of public power as well as the relationship of state and
administrative bodies to each other. Its main fields are constitutional and
administrative law. Studying foreign public law is not a purpose in itself but
helpful for a better understanding of the own public law, its strong and weak
points and perspectives of its development. It is also useful as a source of
inspiration: Innovations and solutions in the public law of one country may be
useful in other countries too.
Germany has developed a
particularly sophisticated public law that has inspired the development of
public law in many European and also non-European countries. This course will
introduce to its structures and approaches, important legal institutions and
legal concepts. It provides an overview and touches a variety of topics in the
fields of both, constitutional and administrative law. It focuses particularly
on those topics that are most interesting from the perspective of comparison of
laws. In the field of constitutional law, these are the role of the constitution
as legal institution and basic legal order of the state, the fundamental
constitutional decisions (especially the principle of the rule of law), the
fundamental rights of the citizens and constitutional review. In the field of
administrative law, the course concentrates on certain topics of general
administrative law (especially some general principles and the legal institution
of the administrative act [= admin. decision]), special administrative law (a
brief overview over important sub-fields) and the judicial control of public
administration in Germany (especially the forms of action before the
administrative courts). The course also includes a first introduction to legal
case-solving in the field of public law.
There will be two in-class
examinations, a mid-term examination in Week 7 and a final examination in Week
15. Each contributes with 50 % to the final grade. See for more details about
this course the course syllabus (available at MNU Canvas).
Downloads (PDF
files)
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Bröhmer, Jürgen; Elsner, Gisela; Hill, Clauspeter; Spitzkatz,
Marc (editors): 70 Years German Basic Law:
The German Constitution and its Court, 3rd edition 2019 (English
translations of landmark decisions on fundamental rights) |
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Bumke, Christian; Vosskuhle,
Andreas: German Constitutional Law. Introduction, Cases, and Principles, 2019
[available at the lecturer] |
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Grimm,
Dieter: Constitutionalism. Past, Present and Future,
2018 [available at Google
Books] |
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Glaser,
Henning (editor): Constitutional Jurisprudence.
Function, Impact and Challenges, 2016 |
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Heringa,
Aalt Willem: Constitutions Compared. An Introduction
to Comparative Constitutional Law, 6th edition 2021 |
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Heun,
Werner: The Constitution of Germany. A Contextual
Analysis, 2011 [available
at the lecturer] |
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Jestaedt,
Matthias; Lepsius, Oliver; Möllers, Christoph; Schönberger, Christoph:
The German Federal Constitutional Court. The Court
without Limits, 2020 |
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Kau, Marcel:
Constitutional Law, in: Zekoll, Joachim; Wagner, Gerhard (editors):
Introduction to German Law, 3rd edition
2018, Chapter 2
[available at the lecturer] |
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Robbers,
Gerhard: Constitutional Law in Germany, 2017 |
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Rogowski,
Ralf: Gawron, Thomas (editors): Constitutional
Courts in Comparison: The US Supreme Court and the German Federal
Constitutional Court, 2016 |
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Herdegen, Matthias; Masing,
Johannes; Poscher, Ralf; Gärditz, Klaus Ferdinand:
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Cane, Peter;
Hofmann, Herwig C.H.; Ip, Eric C.; Lindseth, Peter L. (editors):
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Administrative Law, 2021 |
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Kuhlmann, Sabine; Proeller, Isabella; Schimanke, Dieter; Ziekow, Jan (editors):
Public administration in
Germany, 2021 (for advanced research |
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Künnecke,
Martina: Tradition and Change in
Administrative Law, 2006
[avaible at the lecturer] |
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Rose-Ackermann, Susan Lindseth, Peter L.; Emerson, Blake (editors):
Comparative Administrative Law, 2nd
edition 2019 |
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Saurer,
Johannes: Administrative Law, in: Zekoll, Joachim; Wagner, Gerhard
(editors): Introduction to German Law, 3rd
edition 2018, Chapter 3
[available at the lecturer] |
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Schmidt-Aßmann, Eberhard: General principles of German
administrative law, Journal of the Indian Law
Institute 35 (1993), no. 1/2, p. 65 ff.,
www.jstor.org/stable/43952325 |
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Seerden,
René (editor): Comparative Administrative Law. The Administrative Law of
the European Union, Its Member States and the
United States, 4th edition 2018 |
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Weidemann, Lilly: Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in
Germany, in: Cananea, Giacinto della; Bussani,
Mauro (editors), Judicial Review of Administration in Europe, 2021, Chapter
8 |
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concerning §§ 2
II, 3 II:
Jan Werner
Müller; Kim Lane Scheppele, Constitutional patriotism: An
Introduction, I*CON 6, Issue 1, 2008, 67 ff.
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concerning § 2
IV:
U.S. Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison,
1803 (primacy of the constitution and constitutional review);
Jutta Limbach, The Concept of the Supremacy of the Constitution,
Modern Law Review 64 (2001), no. 1, p. 1 ff.;
Christian Bumke; Andreas Voßkuhle, German Constitutional Law,
2019, no. 161 ff., on the interpretation of laws in conformity with the
constitution according to the Federal Constitutional Court (cf. BVerfGE
86, 288, 320; 122, 39, 60)
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concerning § 2
V:
Gàbor Halmai, Constitutional Interpretation in a Globalized
World, Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 2012, 271 ff.
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concerning § 4
II: Council of Europe
and its
Venice Commission; the
fundamental values clause of the European Union (art.
2 EU Treaty) |
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concerning § 4
V:
Thomas Schmitz, Defensive Democracy in Germany - Precautions and
Instruments under the Basic Law to prevent Authoritarianism, guest
lecture, Universitas Indonesia 06.04.2023
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concerning § 5 I, II:
Pietro Costa; Danilo Zolo
(editors),
The Rule of Law. History, Theory and Criticism,
2007;
Matthias Koetter,
Rechtsstaat and Rechtsstaatlichkeit in Germany,
2010;
Thomas Schmitz, Observations on the Role of the Rule of Law in
Times of Globalisation and Populism, IC-GLOW 2018 |
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concerning § 5: IV:
Venice Commission, Rule of Law Checklist, 2016 |
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concerning § 5 V:
Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, The Principle of Proportionality in the
Case-Law of the German Federal Constitutional Court, HRLJ 34 (2014), 12;
Luka Anđelković, The elements of Proportionality as a Principle
of Human Rights Limitations, Law and Politics 15 (2017), no. 3, 235 |
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concerning § 6:
Bundestag,
Bundesrat [Federal Council],
Federal
Government,
Federal President |
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concerning § 7:
art. 1(3) German Basic Law (fundamental rights as directly
applicable law - today a standard of constitutionalism);
Dieter Grimm, The role of fundamental rights after sixty-five
years of constitutional jurisprudence in Germany, I•CON 13 (2015), p. 9
ff. |
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concerning § 7
X:
Thomas Schmitz, Introduction to legal case-solving, course
material, Hanoi 2014 |
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concerning § 8:
Homepage of the
Federal Constitutional Court with
information,
also on the
types of proceedings
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concerning §
10: diagram
on the structure of public administration in Germany
(Umweltbundesamt; see slide 5)
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concerning § 11
III: See on discretion with a European comparative approach:
Ulrich Stelkens, General Principles of Administrative Law. § 5
Discretion (course material).
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concerning §
12:
Thomas Schmitz, The requirements of the legality of the
administrative decision in German and European law, conference paper,
Hanoi 2013 |
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concerning § 14:
Federal
Administrative Court [Bundesverwaltungsgericht],
German system of administrative courts
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concerning §
15: For those interested in the art of precise and correct legal
case-solving:
Thomas Schmitz, Course "Introduction to legal case-solving and
mooting", Hanoi Law University, Semester 1, 2013/14 (see in particular
the
practical guidelines).
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