INTRODUCTION

It was Aristotle who stated “that man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it”. Of course, this characteristic of human beings as “political animals” does not exclude that they are also individuals with the need of free development of their personality. Public interests as well as private interests are an accompanying factor of human reality. This is also reflected in legal orders, which often explicitly refer to different public interests in their provisions. Typical examples for such references are rules which prescribe the consideration of public interests while granting interim relief. Other examples are restrictions on the fundamental freedoms allowed by the TFEU if they are justified on grounds of public interests such as public morality, public policy or public security. The interpretation of such explicit references to public interests can mainly rely on a literal interpretation of the wording of such provisions in its specific context.

However, it has to be emphasised that public interests may constitute the purpose of legal provisions even though these interests are not explicitly mentioned in the legal text or in the legislative material. In these cases, the particular public interests have to be derived from the context, to construct the “assumed purpose” of the law. Such a reconstruction of the content of the legal provision is referred to as “objective teleological interpretation”. The experience with generally accepted values plays an important role for this form of interpretation, and public interests belong without doubt to such values. Of course, such a reference to public interests raises questions about its basic methodological justification as well as the character and weight of public interests and their meaning for concrete interpretations. Thus, I will focus my following considerations on all these aspects of “implicit” or “assumed” public interests in legal provisions identified by an “objective teleological interpretation”.