Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1990
Publication Information
19 German Pol. & Soc'y 1 (1990)
Abstract
The complex structure of church-state relations in West Germany arises out of numerous provisions of the Basic Law that combine features of both separation and accommodation. The Basic Law's separationist features are expressed in various guarantees of religious liberty and in the ban on the establishment of a state church. Its accommodationist features appear in constitutional provisions on religious education as well as in articles, taken over from the Weimar Constitution, that confer upon the established churches a special juridical status enjoyed by no other nongovernmental entity. The arguably diverse goals of the religion clauses are difficult to reconcile, creating dilemmas similar to problems raised by the tension between the "establishment" and "free exercise" clauses of the United States Constitution. In the German understanding, however, these dilemmas collapse under the weight of an interpretative approach that seeks to bring divergent clauses into harmony with one another and with the values of the Basic Law as a whole.
Recommended Citation
Donald P. Kommers,
West German Constitutionalism and Church-State Relations,
19 German Pol. & Soc'y 1 (1990).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1375
