Re:Justice Clarence Thomas uncovered a seven-year-old bug in...
by rayiner on Friday April 01, 2022 @11:08PM
(#30885551)
The nice thing about German constitutional jurisprudence is that there’s an explicit recognition and functional balancing of competing rights and societal interests. This tends to cut both ways from the perspective of American politics. Religious interests and the right to life get robust consideration, but at the same time individual free speech and economic rights aren’t treated as a trump card against societal interests.
Germany's constitutional court also does so from time to time, unfortunately.
Decades ago they invented a right to "informational self-determination" that has no textual basis in the constitution.
It's a good right to have. I understand why they felt compelled to do so.
But every time the court decides something like this they have to demarcate the borders, where it applies and where not. In doing so so they draw red lines that the political process can hardly overcome, even if it might have yielded a better end result by giving the edges a little different form.
Last year our court invented a right to school education, again without textual basis.