The following reflections, that will focus exclusively on the European primacy clause in the light of the Statement by the Constitutional Court no. 1/2004 of 13 December, in particular with regard to its scope as regards the Spanish Constitution itself, may take as a starting point the conclusion contained at the last paragraph of FJ 4 of the Statement, which states as follows:

“In the scarcely-conceivable event that in the ultimate functioning of European Union Law this Law were to result irreconcilable with the Spanish Constitution, and without the hypothetical excesses of European Law with regard to the European Constitution itself being remedied by the ordinary channels provided for in the latter, ultimately the preservation of the sovereignty of the Spanish people and of the supremacy of the Constitution as it provides for itself could lead this Court to tackle the problems that would arise in such a case, and which from the current point of view are considered to be non-existent, by way of the relevant constitutional procedures”.

This year is designated the “European Year of Citizens”. It marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the European Union citizenship under the Treaty of Maastricht. It is important to ask what exactly will be celebrated on this occasion. Specifically, which rights did the European peoples gain by virtue of their so-called fundamental status of EU citizenship, and were the guarantees embedded in those rights satisfactory? This article will address these questions by focusing on the social rights field, a field which has been dramatically affected by the development of the European Union citizenship concept.

In the crusade against organized crime, it has become more and more accepted that the often trans-border crime cannot sufficiently be tackled by enhanced enforcement and cooperation between states alone. An alternative tool may be what can be termed the instrumentalization of the victims to enable the prosecution of organized criminals. This brings to the fore the dilemma that the victims are often themselves offenders, as a rule, breaching provisions of immigration law. Therefore, it is typically not in their interest to bring offences of trafficking and smuggling, of which they are the victims, to the attention of the authorities. Initiatives at the international and EU/EC level, which grant limited residence rights to those victims who collaborate in the prosecution of the offenders, attempt to deal with this conflict of interest. This implies at least a partial recognition of the status of the victim.

I don't usually open my commentary by citing great words spoken by old men. But in this case I will make an exception. Ferdinand Lassalle is not only the grandfather of German social democracy; he is also the author of these words: “Constitutional issues are power issues.”

It has been a long journey from the noble declaration in the Federal Republic's new constitution (Grundgesetz [Basic Law]) that women and men have equal rights, to the establishment of concrete laws and jurisprudence that now assure that women and men actually receive equal treatment and that women are no longer disadvantaged in society (and even more, laws and jurisprudence that assure that women receive support if they encounter structural disadvantages). This article, in looking back on its first fifty years of service, surveys the decisive role that the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) played in that journey.

This article focuses on the strategy to replace the UK Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) with a home-grown Bill of Rights to lessen the influence of the European Court of Human Rights' case law. Without attempting to disregard the national-specific elements, the discussion of these questions is very relevant for all States confronted with the influence of Strasbourg. The tension between coherence, efficiency and autonomy is overarching. The article therefore approaches the issue not only from an outsider's perspective but also, where relevant, from a comparative constitutional law perspective. Both perspectives seem to be largely absent from the current (academic) debate. Firstly, this article analyzes the current relationship between the UK Supreme Court and the Strasbourg Court, which reveals that the judicial arguments in support of a mirror principle are not so much based on section 2(1) HRA, as they are, in the domestic courts' relationship with Strasbourg, on concerns about international obligations, hierarchy, effectiveness of the Strasbourg Court, coherence and efficiency. Internally, judicial arguments are founded on concerns about separation of powers, limited jurisdiction, and accustomedness to the precedent system. In the second part, this article focuses on the potential impact of a home-grown Bill of Rights on the current relationship between both courts; concluding that a home-grown Bill of Rights will most likely cause domestic courts to receive less latitude by Strasbourg and will not absolve domestic judges from the duty of taking into account the Strasbourg case law.

In three high-profile cases the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG — Federal Constitutional Court) was recently called upon to exercise its authority to issue a temporary injunction in proccedings referred to as einstweilige Anordnungen (provisional measures). Article 32 of the Bundesverfassungsgerichtgesetz (BVerfGG — Federal Constitutional Court Act) provides: In a dispute the Federal Consitutional Court may deal with a matter provisionally by means of a temporary injunction if this is urgently needed to avert serious detriment, ward off imminent force or for any other important reason for the common good.

Recent criticism of American legal education has focused on its being theory-driven rather than practice driven, which either produces or reinforces a divide or gap between theory and practice. Yet two features of American legal education expressly draw upon experiential learning, one directly by sending students into experiential learning situations (legal clinics) and the other indirectly by bringing instructors who are engaged full-time in active practice into the classroom (i.e. adjunct faculty). If skills development is a feature of American legal education, to what degree can, or should, this be transplanted to other systems of legal education? Are American experiential techniques of legal education meaningful elsewhere?

The ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the Right to be forgotten II case is an example of constitutional pluralism in action. It demonstrates how a pluralist-minded court can elevate itself from and above the constitutional confines of its own legal order. By integrating the material standards of another legal order in its own review of constitutionality a national constitutional court contributes directly to the strengthening of the fundamental rights of individuals against the national authorities within the overall system of European legal order.

Quantitative approaches are gaining popularity in German legal research. The analysis of large corpora of legal text may be supported by text mining methods. In this study, we employ topic modeling—which aims at retrieving the “topics” of a corpus—to identify words related to certain areas of law present in the case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). This information is then evaluated by legal experts and used to show significant content-related differences between the two most frequent types of proceedings before the FCC. Technical and somewhat unstable areas of law, such as tax law, social law, and civil service law, are significantly overrepresented in referrals for judicial review, whereas areas of law characterized by well-developed case law and judicial doctrine appear substantially more often in constitutional complaints. This insight may come as a surprise due to the fact that the Court’s material scope of review is identical in both types of proceedings. Our considerations do not, however, seem to apply to private law. Though we recognize the methodological and epistemological concerns regarding the heuristic nature of topic modeling, this study exemplifies its productive use in complementing, rather than replacing, more traditional techniques of analysis in legal studies.

The Bologna Declaration (1999) started a process of reforming European higher education. The major aim of the declaration was to construct a single European Higher Education Area by 2010,

Like many of the provisions of the German Grundgesetz (Basic Law – GG) the constitutional protection of German citizenship enshrined in Article 16.1 GG is a reaction to the atrocities committed by Nazi-Germany. From early on, the Nazis had abused nationality law not only as a sanctioning device to discipline Germans living abroad but also to ostracize unwanted citizens and confiscate their property, i.e., as a means of large scale political and racial discrimination. This inhuman denaturalization practice culminated in the 11. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz (11th ordinance of 25 November 1941, issued by virtue of the Reich's Citizenship Law), which stripped Jewish citizens living abroad of their German nationality, aiming inter alia at Jews deported to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. To prevent any kind of political abuse of denaturalization measures in the future, Article 16.1 sent. 1 GG guarantees that no German may be deprived of his nationality. There is a long-standing debate about the precise meaning of this strict ban on any “deprivation” of nationality, because at the same time Article 16.1 sent. 2 GG allows for the loss of German nationality against the will of the person affected if this loss has a statutory basis and the person does not become stateless as a result. Thus, it is unclear whether the constitution permits a revocation of German citizenship, and if so under what conditions. Further, this debate broaches the questions of whether there are, in fact, exceptions to the constitutional protection against statelessness, e.g., in cases of fraud.

We discuss the issue of bringing human trafficking and forced prostitution within the purview of Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia marked a turning point by classifying forced prostitution through human trafficking under Article 4. However, in the judgment in S.M. v. Croatia, the ECtHR further reinforced its view that human trafficking and forced prostitution constitute a violation of Article 4.

We explain human trafficking and forced prostitution both theoretically and through a number of international legal acts. We then explain Article 4 of the Convention and provide a comprehensive analysis of the material and procedural guarantees against human trafficking and forced prostitution. We also comment on the positive obligations that the ECtHR set for Member States. The authors believe that, despite numerous criticisms, the ECtHR’s position is correct and that both human trafficking and forced prostitution violate the principles of democratic society. Therefore, victims must enjoy the protection afforded by Article 4 of the Human Rights Convention and other conventions if their life situation falls within their scope.

In 1971, upon the conclusion of my university studies and my first state examination, and before sitting for my second (final) state examination, I commenced my practical training as a so-called Referendar at the Amtsgericht (local district court) in Gettorf, near Kiel. It was a very small court, employing only one judge who was responsible in this position for all legal cases. In addition, a total of approximately 20 other employees were working there. The court had no electric typewriter, and no copying machine. When a copy had to be made, the document was literally transcribed in the true sense of the word. Later, after my second and final state examination, I started my services as a judge at the Landgericht (regional court) in Bremen, a court with approximately 60 judges and a total of approximately 200 employees. It was not a matter of course that each judge had a telephone of his/her own. Moreover, connections to the outside world were frequently only possible through the general telephone exchange. One office had to be shared by several judges. Dictating machines were available, but not taken for granted. On the contrary, as a rule it was the usual practice for a clerk to take the minutes—even in cases for which the Code of Procedure did not specifically require this.

Since 1995 the Commission has repeatedly reviewed the operation of directive 87/102/EEC for the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states concerning consumer credit. This was regarded to be necessary mainly for two reasons: firstly, even at the time of the enactment of the original directive its level of protection was lower than in most member states; secondly, the Commission repeatedly emphasised several changes, which had taken place in regard to the credit services sector in recent years. Whereas the previous directive was targeted at the two most common “products” at that time, namely hire purchase agreements and instalment credit and reflected the cash-based society of that time, the range of products presently offered is much more colourful.

With respect to space at least, philosophy is almost unanimous. A space comes into being as soon as a border is established and an observer looks at both sides of the border including at the border separating the sides. Without the border, no space, and the space has none. Without the observer, the same applies, even if there are only observers where distinctions are being drawn. Jacques Derrida was conscious of this. One of his questions is the perennial question of philosophy: what is space if, for a space to reveal itself, there is a boundary to be drawn, such that an observer may emerge looking at the space the boundary is brought forward in.

Police powers of discretion to discontinue criminal proceedings are rather exceptional in Europe, where most Criminal Justice Systems are based on some kind of principle of legality. Germany and England may be regarded as contrasting examples for different decision-making-models on the question whether or not to prosecute an offender. Germany, with a principle of compulsory prosecution theoretically guiding the work of public prosecutors—compared to England, where already the police have significant powers of discretion when deciding about a case. In recent years, however, the differences between the practice of these principles seem to have vanished: Whereas some German federal states have started to involve police in prosecution decisions, policy makers in England try to restrain the traditionally wide discretion of police in dealing with cases of minor crimes. Interesting lessons that might be useful for future harmonization of European criminal justice systems can be drawn from the experiences in both countries.