Related Research Articles
The European Convention on Human Rights is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953. All Council of Europe member states are party to the convention and new members are expected to ratify the convention at the earliest opportunity.
The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights enumerated in the convention or its optional protocols to which a member state is a party. The court is based in Strasbourg, France.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, often simply referred to as the Charter in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all governments in Canada. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The Charter was proclaimed in force by Queen Elizabeth II of Canada on April 17, 1982, as part of the Constitution Act, 1982.
A communist state is a form of government that combines the state leadership of a communist party, Marxist–Leninist political philosophy, and an official commitment to the construction of a communist society. Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe and blamed capitalism for societal miseries. In the 20th century, several communist states were established, first in Russia with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. The institutions of these states were heavily influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and others. During most of the 20th century, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states. However, the political reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev known as Perestroika and socio-economic difficulties produced the revolutions of 1989, which brought down all the communist states of the Eastern Bloc bar the Soviet Union. The repercussions of the collapse of these states contributed to political transformations in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and several other non-European communist states. Presently, there are five communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.
The Enabling Act of 1933, officially titled Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich, was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the power to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, leading to the rise of Nazi Germany. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government.
The Communist Party of Germany was a major far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germany during the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956.
Freedom of religion in Germany is guaranteed by article 4 of the German constitution. This states that "the freedom of religion, conscience and the freedom of confessing one's religious or philosophical beliefs are inviolable. Uninfringed religious practice is guaranteed." In addition, article 3 states that "No one may be prejudiced or favored because of his gender, his descent, his race, his language, his homeland and place of origin, his faith or his religious or political views." Any person or organization can call the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany for free help.
Defensive democracy is a term referring to the collection of laws, delegated legislation, and court rulings which limit certain rights and freedoms in a democratic society in order to protect the existence of the state, its democratic character and institutions, minority rights, et cetera. The term describes a major conflict that may emerge in a democratic country between compliance with democratic values, particularly freedom of association and the right to be elected, and between preventing anti-democratic groups and persons from abusing these principles.
The Federal Republic of Germany guarantees freedom of speech, expression, and opinion to its citizens as per Article 5 of the constitution. Despite this, censorship of various materials has taken place since the Allied occupation after World War II and continues to take place in Germany in various forms due to a limiting provision in Article 5, Paragraph 2 of the constitution. In 2014 the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index ranked Germany as 14th in the world in terms of press freedom. During the Allied occupation of Germany, the media was controlled by the occupying forces. The policy rationales differed among the occupying powers, but there was resentment in literary and journalistic circles in many parts of the country. Undesired publishing efforts were unilaterally blocked by the occupying forces.
Communist Party (Nepeceriști) was a Romanian communist party, officially registered 31 July 2006. The term Nepeceriști means people who were not members of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR).
Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of government censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression. The right is preserved in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. Nonetheless, the degree to which the right is upheld in practice varies greatly from one nation to another. In many nations, particularly those with authoritarian forms of government, overt government censorship is enforced. Censorship has also been claimed to occur in other forms and there are different approaches to issues such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws.
Vogt v. Germany (1996) 21 EHRR 205, (17851/91) was a case decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 1995. The case concerned a Mrs. Vogt who was suspended from her teaching job at a public secondary school because of her past membership in the German Communist Party. The ECHR ruled that this application of Berufsverbot violated provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights relating to freedom of expression and freedom of association.
United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548 (1973), is a ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Hatch Act of 1939 does not violate the First Amendment, and its implementing regulations are not unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
The Federal Constitutional Court is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law of Germany. Since its inception with the beginning of the post-World War II republic, the court has been located in the city of Karlsruhe, which is also the seat of the Federal Court of Justice.
The rule of law is one of the longest established common law fundamental principles of the governance of the United Kingdom, dating to Magna Carta of 1215, particularly jurisprudence following its late 13th century re-drafting. At a minimum, it subjects an otherwise absolute monarch (executive) and all free people within its jurisdictions, primarily those of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to legal doctrines known as the general principles of law. It has evolved to work only alongside equal application of the law to all free people 'equality before the law' and within the framework of the constitutional monarchy supports the legal doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Exactly what it entails beyond this and the way that different aspects of the rule of law principle are applied, depends on the specific situation and era.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, compels the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the administrative organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.
Communist symbols have been banned, in part or in whole, by a number of the world's countries. As part of a broader process of decommunization, these bans have mostly been proposed or implemented in countries that belonged to the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, including some post-Soviet states. In some countries, the bans also extend to prohibit the propagation of communism in any form, with varying punishments applied to violators. Though the bans imposed by these countries nominally target the communist ideology, they may be accompanied by popular anti-leftist sentiment and therefore a de facto ban on all leftist philosophies, such as socialism, while not explicitly passing legislation to ban them.
The liberal democratic basic order is a fundamental term in German constitutional law. It determines the unalienable, invariable core structure of the German commonwealth. As such, it is the core substance of the German constitution. Building upon more general definitions of liberal democracy, the term has a specific legal meaning in Germany and is part of the German system of a Streitbare Demokratie that bans attempts to dismantle the liberal democratic basic order by what German authorities refer to as "enemies of the Constitution" or "extremists".
"Necessary in a democratic society" is a test found in Articles 8–11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that the state may impose restrictions of these rights only if such restrictions are "necessary in a democratic society" and proportional to the legitimate aims enumerated in each article. According to the Council of Europe's handbook on the subject, the phrase is "arguably one of the most important clauses in the entire Convention". Indeed, the Court has itself written that "the concept of a democratic society ... prevails throughout the Convention". The purpose of making such claims justiciable is to ensure that the restriction is actually necessary, rather than enacted for political expediency, which is not allowed. Articles 8–11 of the convention are those that protect right to family life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association respectively. Along with the other tests which are applied to these articles, the restrictions on Articles 8–11 have been described as "vast limitations", in contrast to American law which recognizes nearly unlimited right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
References
- ↑ "Petition Submitted by the Federal Government to the Federal Constitutional Court Requesting a Ban on the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) (November 22, 1951)". German History in Documents and Images. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ↑ "Federal Constitutional Court Verdict Banning the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Concluding Justification (August 17, 1956)". German History in Documents and Images. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ↑ Franz, Paul (1982). "Unconstitutional and Outlawed Political Parties: A German-American Comparison". Boston College International and Comparative Law Review. 5 (1): 59.
- ↑ Decision 250/57, European Commission of Human Rights
- ↑ Rainey, Bernadette; Elizabeth, Wicks; Clare, Overy (2014). Jacobs, White and Ovey: The European Convention on Human Rights. Oxford University Press. p. 121. ISBN 9780199655083.
- ↑ Benedek, Wolfgang; Kettemann, Matthias (2014). Freedom of expression and the Internet. Council of Europe. p. 86. ISBN 978-9287178206.
- ↑ Petaux, Jean (2014). Democracy and Human Rights for Europe: The Council of Europe's Contribution. Council of Europe. pp. 168–169. ISBN 978-9287166678.