Original scientific paper
BASIC ELEMENTS OF THE RIGHT TO A FREE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY IN GERMAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
Siniša Rodin
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article discusses the historical foundations and development of the right to free development of personality guaranteed by Article 2 section 1 of the BL. Though Article 2 section 1 has remained unchanged since enactment of the BL, the right to free development of personality has been significantly developed and elaborated by the Federal Constitutional Court. On the one hand, when interpreted in conjunction with Art. 1 section 1 of the BL it protects the general right of personality, and on the other hand a broadly defined general freedom of action. Both lines of jurisprudence are supported by a large number of cases which have granted protection to a number of unspecified rights. Examples are protection of private and intimate life sphere, data protection rights, right to personal dignity, right to one's own spoken word, etc. That leads to a conclusion that any attempt to create a comprehensive formal catalogue of fundamental rights must necessarily remain incomplete. An exhaustive list of fundamental rights is possible only in absence of their concretization. As the German experience shows, any interpretation, i.e. concretization of fundamental rights, necessarily leads to the change of their scope and substance.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
105785
URI
Publication date:
21.3.1997.
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