Public Order and Civil Liberties

Abstract

The strength of a democratic government can be gauged by the degree of civil liberties it allows its citizens, even when faced by threats to the public order. This chapter examines the question whether the Federal Republic’s guarantees of civil liberties based on the rule of law and written into the Basic Law of 1949 have become a reality for all citizens and permanent foreign residents or whether the habits of authoritarianism persist and the state seeks to repress dissenting opinion.