THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE GERMAN CONSTITUTIONAL JURISDICTION – SOME ASPECTS OF THE RELATION WITH EU AND ECHR.
THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE GERMAN CONSTITUTIONAL JURISDICTION – SOME ASPECTS OF THE RELATION WITH EU AND ECHR.

Summary/Abstract: National Constitutions regulate the relation of the State with international as well as with supranational law. The State of today is an “open State”; Rule of Law comprises the respect of internal, national and of external law. This legitimizes national constitutional justice to review the legal consequences of the introduction of international law and the admittance of supranational law into the inner legal sphere of the State. The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has accepted the specificities of the supranational (EC) EU law as defined in particular by the Costa/ENEL jurisprudence but has developed limits to integration such as its ultra vires and constitutional identity concept. The European Convention of human rights (ECHR), internally with the rank of ordinary federal legislation, has been constitutionalized by the FCC stating that the German fundamental rights have to be interpreted, as far as possible, in the light of the ECHR. These concepts are also reflected by the procedural mechanisms which correspond to the interconnection between the national, international and supranational orders.

• Details
• Contents