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On Böckenförde’s “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge” - Discussed: Religion, Law, and Democracy: Selected Writings. By Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. Edited by Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein. Translated by Thomas Dunlap. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 480. $65.00 (cloth); Oxford Scholarship Online by subscription (digital). ISBN: 9780198818632. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198818632.001.0001.
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Discussed: Religion, Law, and Democracy: Selected Writings. By Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. Edited by Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein. Translated by Thomas Dunlap. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 480. $65.00 (cloth); Oxford Scholarship Online by subscription (digital). ISBN: 9780198818632. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198818632.001.0001.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2022
Abstract
In the essay “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde addresses the dilemma of the Catholic judge who is sworn to apply a secular constitution yet who confesses to a “spirituality [that] knows no separation between the personal-private and the occupational spheres.” Böckenförde faced that dilemma in the 1993 abortion decision of the German Constitutional Court, which—with Böckenförde voting with the majority—held that abortion, while still punishable, allowed exceptions subject to certain conditions and counselling requirements. In this essay, the author situates that issue within the nature of judicial power and the ethical duties of the judge; the jurisdictional constraints that in other jurisdictions are available to avoid normative conflicts; and, finally, the challenges to judicial power when called upon to validate laws that go beyond the traditional punitive approach that merely prohibits and condemns, and that instead use welfare measures to actualize substantive norms taking into account social and historical realities.
- Type
- Book Review Symposium: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Religion, Law, and Democracy
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University
References
1 Unger, Roberto Mangabeira, The Critical Legal Studies Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 119 Google Scholar.
2 Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge [1999],” in Religion, Law, and Democracy. Selected Writings, ed. Künkler, Mirjam and Stein, Tine, trans. Dunlap, Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 280–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Böckenförde, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” 280.
4 Böckenförde, 280.
5 Böckenförde, 283.
6 Böckenförde, 284.
7 Böckenförde, 284.
8 Böckenförde, 285. Böckenförde attributes the quotation to the journalist Hanno Kühnert in the April 12, 1992, edition of Die Zeit. The online archive of Die Zeit indicates that the article appeared in the December 4, 1992, edition. See Hanno Kühnert, “Weinig Hoffnung auf Karlsruhe” [Little hope for Karlsruhe], Die Zeit, December 4, 1992, https://www.zeit.de/1992/50/wenig-hoffnung-auf-karlsruhe.
9 Böckenförde, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” 286.
10 Böckenförde, 286.
11 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), English translation at https://germanlawarchive.iuscomp.org/?p=1190.
12 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), para. 146.
13 Michael Hollerich, introduction to “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde on Religion and Democracy,” by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, trans. Thomas Dunlap, Commonweal, December 28, 2020, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/christian-office-constitutional-judge.
14 Böckenförde, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” 285. But note that Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde is one of the founding members of Donum Vitae (on the organization, see Sabine Demel’s contribution in this symposium). The Catholic lay organization offers pregnancy conflict counseling. In Germany, such counseling is mandatory in order for the woman undertaking the abortion not to be criminally prosecuted—and the abortion must be undertaken in the first three months of pregnancy. The official church refuses to participate in the state counseling system.
15 People of the Philippines v. Judge Lorenzo Veneracion, G.R. No. 119987-88 (12 October 1995) (emphases added).
16 Böckenförde, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” 287.
17 Böckenförde, 287.
18 Imbong v. Executive Secretary, G.R. No. 204819 (2014) (upholding the Reproductive Health Law requiring government-sponsored access to contraceptives; the petitioners were not injured parties).
19 Imbong v. Executive Secretary, G.R. No. 204819 (2014) (no denial of a constitutionally protected right was alleged).
20 The abortion cases before Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), had been dismissed for mootness since abortion cases typically lasted longer than the nine-month pregnancy.
21 Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986) (there is no protected right to wear religious apparel, namely, a yarmulke, while in military uniform).
22 MacDonnell, Vanessa and Hughes, Jula, “The German Abortion Decisions and the Protective Function in German and Canadian Constitutional Law,” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 50, no. 4 (2013): 999–1050 Google Scholar (The abortion opponents in effect were asking the Court to direct the government to recriminalize abortion).
23 See Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986).
24 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), at 181.
25 Hollerich, introduction to “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde on Religion and Democracy.”
26 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), case syllabus, para. 6.
27 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), at 164.
28 BVerfGE 88, 203—Abortion II (Schwangerschaftsabbruch II) (1993), at 165.
29 Sargentich, Lewis, Liberal Legality: A Unified Theory of Our Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), xiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 Philippine Constitution, art. II (Declaration of Principles and State Policies) §12.
31 Imbong v. Executive Secretary, G.R. No. 204819 (2014).
32 Böckenförde, “A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge,” 286.