Is the «intertemporal» protection of freedom possible? The expansion of the concept of freedom in the judgment of the German Constitutional Court in the Neubauer case

Authors

  • Marcos de Armenteras Cabot Universitat de les Illes Balears

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/rep.200.07

Abstract

The German Constitutional Court, in the judgment of the case Neubauer v. Germany on the unconstitutionality of the Climate Protection Law (2019), upholds that the general right to freedom has an «intertemporal» character. This judgment links principles of intergenerational equity included in the Basic Law with the general right to freedom, assuming that the general right to freedom must also be guaranteed in the future and, consequently, measures must be taken today to make it effective. This article analyses the judgment from this perspective and raises the need to reconfigure, along the lines that the Constitutional Court has done, the notion of freedom in the face of the present ecological crisis.

Published

2023-07-06

Issue

Section

ARTICLES