The Basic Law of Germany in Outline

In one line

The Basic Law of 1949 has 146 articles, opens with human dignity, entrenches the essentials against amendment in article 79(3), and gives its Constitutional Court the widest jurisdiction of any court on this syllabus.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, adopted on 23 May 1949, comprises 146 articles in fourteen Chapters, beginning with the basic rights, and is distinguished by the inviolability of human dignity in article 1, militant democracy, executive federalism, the constructive vote of no confidence and the eternity clause in article 79(3).

Chapter I, articles 1 to 19: the basic rights

Article 1. Human dignity shall be inviolable; to respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world. And article 1(3): the following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the executive and the judiciary as directly applicable law.

That third paragraph is the design decision. Under the Weimar Constitution the rights had been read as programmatic; article 1(3) makes them binding law.

Articles 2 to 19. Article 2, free development of personality, life and physical integrity, and liberty of the person. Article 3, equality before the law, with article 3(2) on equal rights for men and women and article 3(3) forbidding discrimination on listed grounds. Article 4, freedom of faith and conscience. Article 5, freedom of expression, of the press, of arts and sciences. Article 6, marriage and family. Article 7, the school system. Article 8, assembly. Article 9, association, with article 9(3) on the right to form associations to safeguard working conditions. Article 10, privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications. Article 11, freedom of movement. Article 12, occupational freedom. Article 13, inviolability of the home. Article 14, property and inheritance, with article 14(2) providing that property entails obligations and its use shall also serve the public good. Article 15, socialisation. Article 16, citizenship and extradition. Article 16a, asylum. Article 17, right of petition. Article 18, forfeiture of basic rights by a person who abuses them to combat the free democratic basic order. Article 19, restriction of basic rights, with article 19(2) providing that in no case may the essence of a basic right be affected, and article 19(4) guaranteeing recourse to the courts to any person whose rights are violated by public authority.

Chapter II, articles 20 to 37: the Federation and the Lander

Article 20 is the structural article: the Federal Republic is a democratic and social federal state; all state authority is derived from the people and shall be exercised through elections and votes and through specific legislative, executive and judicial bodies; the legislature is bound by the constitutional order and the executive and judiciary by law and justice; and article 20(4) gives all Germans the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, if no other remedy is available.