Die politischen Auswirkungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts

In dieser Arbeit werden die Auswirkungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts auf das politische Gefüge und die Legislative in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland untersucht. Die Kompetenz zur Nichtigkeitserklärung eines Gesetzes wird als Kompetenz außerhalb der Judikative angesehen. Die Forschungsfrage ist dabei, ob das Verfassungsgericht in der Frage der Nichtigkeitserklärung des Luftsicherheitsgesetzes das politische System der Bundesrepublik beeinflusst hat. Dabei werden zuerst die klärenden Begriffe des modernen westlichen Staates geklärt, die für eine moderne Form der Demokratie nötig sind. Die folgende Analyse des Grundgesetzes, der deutschen Verfassung, soll eine Einordnung ermöglichen, auf welcher Grundlage das Bundesverfassungsgericht handelt. Dabei werden auch die historischen Ereignisse berücksichtigt. Im Anschluss folgt eine Analyse des Luftsicherheitsgesetzes, die politische Kommunikation um das Gesetz und das Urteil.This paper analyses the political effects of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany on the political structure and the legislature power of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although the judiciary has the authority of declaring laws unconstitutional, this is considered to be outside its area of competence. The main question that this paper seeks to examine is if the Constitutional Court influenced the political system of the Federal Republic by declaring the Aviation Security Act unconstitutional. The concepts that constitute the modern western state and that are necessary for the modern notion of democracy are explained firstly. The subsequent analysis of the Constitution of Germany, also called Basic or Fundamental Law, gives an overview on how the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany functions. The historical events are also taken into consideration and are followed by an analysis of the Aviation Security Act, the political communication concerning this law and the courts decision

How things have changed during the last decade!

As the co-founder of the Internet portal historicum.net (www.historicum.net), the co-publisher of the online journals sehepunkte (www.sehepunkte.de), zeitenblicke (www.zeitenblicke.de), Francia (http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia) und lesepunkte (www.lesepunkte.de), which are now well established in the specialist community, the organiser of the publication platform perspectivia.net (www.perspectivia.net) and, last but not least, the initiator of the new website recensio.net (www.recensio.net), I have played an active part in the development of electronic publishing in the German-speaking countries in recent years as well as in the debate on open access. Things were far from easy at the outset. I can remember being invited to a conference as a young outside lecturer and greeted with the words: »Ah, here comes the database!« At that time, in the late 1990s, many people in the field had no idea of how quickly the ›new media‹ would change their personal and professional lives. While normality has returned to many areas in the meantime, there are still battles to be waged. The debate about open access, copyright and Google’s monopoly, for instance, is by no means over. In fact, this debate is merely a part of a fundamental process of social change which is calling the old familiar models of literary production and reception into question and replacing them with new ones. When I travel on the underground in Paris, I see more and more people using their iPad, iPod touch or other reading devices to read books and newspapers. The triumphant advance of e-books appears to be unstoppable. At the same time, libraries are taking on a different character. They are developing into ›social spaces‹ which are used more to meet and communicate with other people than to read books and specialist literature. Taking account of developments over the past ten years, I have divided my presentation today into three parts. A look back at the progress made by electronic publishing in the humanities since the dawn of the new millennium will be followed by an examination of the status quo. In the third part, finally, I will address a number of problems and look at the prospects offered by future developments