EXC 2060 B3-21 - The German Federal Constitutional Court as a political agent

Basic data for this project

Description

In this project, courts are understood as strategically acting actors who offer generalizable problem solutions on the occasion of individual case decisions, i.e. who engage in innovative conflict management. Thematically, the project concentrates on decisions concerning religious minorities, freedom of worship and the churches. This area is strongly perceived by the public (crucifix, headscarf, church labour law, shafts, schools, ban on dancing on Good Friday). Here legal questions arise which concern both the individual and the collective use of fundamental rights and which raise organisational questions with privileges (corporate status). Finally, the repercussions of jurisdiction can be observed particularly well in the religiously structured subsystems. Court decisions encounter the self-determination of minorities. In the area of religion, moreover, institutions have a sovereignty of interpretation which rival that of the court. At the same time, current conflict situations in religious spheres can be analysed and bundled as part of a structural - and not purely religious - problem. Did the case law, for example, lead to the integration of religious minorities or did it reward the segregation of minorities who are invited to present minority positions as religious conflicts (and not as aspects of general freedom of opinion and assembly, freedom of association or the right of personality), because this promises greater success in Karlsruhe's Agon? The project should also contribute to the normative and functional analysis of the role of supreme courts in the political system through concetrating on manageable conflicts and facts.