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7719 results in Intersentia

Page 319 of 386

  • Transgenderism and the Christian Church: An Overview

  • from PART II - CHRISTIAN VIEWS
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 27-76

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Transgenderism is a relatively rare, complex and genuinely perplexing phenomenon. It is poorly understood by the majority of most populations, challenges commonly held ideas about sexed difference and can generate powerful feelings of unease. It is particularly challenging to religious traditions that vest the differences between the sexes with great theological significance, as is the case for the major branches of Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and the conservative Protestant churches. As a consequence, the overwhelming majority of the 2.1 billion Christians in the world belong to churches which are officially unsympathetic to the claims of transgender people. However, over the last couple of decades there has been a very significant increase in the number of liberal and mainstream Protestant denominations which welcome transsexual and transgender Christians as congregational members and affirm their ministry as leaders and teachers. So, 35 years after Sky Anderson became the first transgender person to be a Christian minister, a growing number of Protestant churches in Europe and the United States of America ordain transgender people as pastors and teachers of the faith and conduct weddings for post-operative transsexual people in their confirmed gender.

    Like all religions, Christianity is actively engaged with the moral and spiritual formation of persons and communities. As such, it has both a more holistic character and a more intimate influence in shaping personal identity and meaning than other forces that seek to influence or regulate the character of social life – like the law. The matter of gender identity and more specifically the issues raised by transgenderism are complex for religious authorities and churches in the modern world, in part because the implications are not simply restricted to the rights of particular individuals or those of a minority group. Rather, inevitably, they have an impact upon communities, relationships between believers, and upon shared understandings of the sacred. The phenomenon of transgenderism and the presence of transgender and transsexual persons within churches have raised three related questions for Christian thinking and practice: Should transgender persons be able to participate as members of Christian congregations, and if so, on what terms? Can people be married in a confirmed gender? Can transgender persons be ordained or licensed as ministers or priests? Responses to these questions have varied significantly between, and in some cases within, different Christian traditions and denominations.

  • Czech Republic

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 125-146

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    This chapter argues that although the legal recognition of transsexuality came early in the Czech Republic, the social and legal understanding and recognition of transgender identity and transgender people's rights has been and continues to be limited. I understand transsexuality as the desire to undergo (or having undergone) ‘gender reassignment treatment/surgery’ and consider legal provisions that are exclusively tied to physical transition as addressing transsexuality. I understand transgender to be a wider concept, which includes but goes beyond transsexuality, and entails the desire to live in (or living in) the role of a gender which is not the one designated at birth. The chapter's main argument is that while Czech law has to some extent addressed concerns of those who wish to ‘fully transition’ – such as the possibility of a name change and birth-record change connected to sex/gender confirmation surgery – it has not paid attention to those transgender people who do not wish to do so.

    The law is based on a heteronormative, biological, and dualistic understanding of sex (rather than gender). First, its heteronormative character manifests itself in the requirement that a marriage be dissolved before a person can submit to sex/gender confirmation surgery. It continues to be unthinkable for Czech law that two persons of the same sex could be married. Second, the biological attachment to ‘sex’ is apparent in the requirement of surgical intervention for any legal recognition of a person's preferred sex/gender. The law recognises the possibility that ‘biological sex’ and ‘psychological sex’ are misaligned. And it now enables their ‘realignment’, medically and legally. What it does not recognise is the possibility that gender identity can be different from biological sex, without a person wishing to physically modify their body, including their sex characteristics. The law does not accept that it might be called to recognise such a situation and enable some legal recognition of a person's preferred legal sex/gender or allow for a name change without that person first having submitted to gender confirmation surgery. Czech law can thus be said to address transsexual rather than transgender issues. Third, the law is incapable of transcending the sex binary.

  • Introduction

    • By Jens M. Scherpe, University of Cambridge, England, and University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 1-8

  • Summary

    AIM AND PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

    The aim and purpose of this book is to make a contribution to the ongoing scholarly and political debates concerning the legal status of transsexual and transgender persons, both inside and outside of potential legislative reform processes. It is also intended as an aid to judicial and administrative decisions. That said, there of course already has been much – and often very fruitful – debate, and many leading academics, as well as transgender advocates (several of whom now contribute to this collection), have made tremendous contributions to this field. But so far, in terms of legal academic as opposed to policy-centred writing, a major comparative legal survey, particularly one which takes into account the most recent developments away from medicalisation and pathologisation towards self-determination, appeared to be missing, and it is this gap that the book hopes to fill. In doing so, there are not only ‘legal’ reports but also contributions from a medical/psychological and theological viewpoint. Law does not operate in a legal vacuum, and thus these additional chapters hopefully provide meaningful reference points for the legal debate.

    The target audience for this book is not necessarily only specialists with previous in-depth knowledge in the field, but also in particular those who have not yet engaged in greater depth with the issues surrounding the legal status of transsexual and transgender persons. The book therefore offers a comparative basis to evaluate developments, existing legal rules and reform proposals.

    TERMINOLOGY

    One of the major difficulties this research/book project has faced was the question of appropriate terminology. The precise wording and terms used in debates surrounding gender identity often reflect the intensely personal views and feelings of the persons concerned, and often are an area of very intense disagreement. This is also reflected in the contributions in this volume; while the editor made suggestions as to which terminology he thought ought to be used (on which see below), the authors were of course free to decide which terminology they wanted to adopt. In many cases, the authors have decided to invoke the terminology which is currently being used in national debates, despite the fact that this terminology may be, at best, imprecise and, at worst, hurtful and insulting to transsexual or transgender individuals.

  • Germany

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 207-222

  • Summary

    GENDER AND TRANSGENDERISM AS LEGAL CONCEPTS – THE FRAMEWORK

    Under German law, the gender of human beings is relevant right from the beginning of their lives. Once a child is born, the civil status registrar is required by the Personenstandsgesetz (PStG), the German Civil Status Act, to certify in the birth register not only the child's name, place, day, hour and minute of birth and the parents’ names, but also the legal gender of the child (see § 21(1) No. 3 PStG). The gender to be registered – which can only be either female or male, although the wording of the Civil Status Act is actually silent on that point – is solely determined by the biological sex characteristics of the child and by the fact whether those characteristics conform to either the female or male legal gender. Any personal identification is irrelevant. Indeed, at such a young age, it would simply not be possible to ascertain such an identification.

    Once documented by the registrar, the legal gender of a person is part of his or her civil status for life, mainly with consequences for family law where the legal gender of a person is still relevant. Just two examples: According to the Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (BGB), the German Civil Code, the mother of a child can only be a woman who has given birth to the child, see § 1591 BGB (‘Mutter eines Kindes ist die Frau, die es geboren hat.’). Similarly, the father of a child can only be a man who meets the conditions for his legal fatherhood, see § 1592 BGB (‘Vater eines Kindes ist der Mann …’). Additionally, only a female and a male person can conclude a marriage, whereas only persons of the same legal gender can enter into a registered partnership under the Lebenspartnerschaftsgesetz (LPartG), the German Registered Partners Act, see § 1(1)1 LPartG.

    Yet what happens if, after the birth of a child, the legal gender of the child cannot be determined because the child's body shows ambiguous sex characteristics? In the past, the parents, doctors and midwives had – often prematurely – to decide on the child's male or female legal gender.

  • England and Wales

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 183-206

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    THE GENERAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK

    In England and Wales the principal sources of law are statutes of the United Kingdom Parliament and decisions of the courts of England and Wales. The law is subject to a human rights framework enacted by the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates into English law, in a freestanding way, many of the articles of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 (Convention rights). Courts are required to take into account decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, legislation must be interpreted, so far as it is possible to do so, in a way which is compatible with Convention rights, and no public authority (which includes a court or tribunal) may act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right. If a law cannot be interpreted as compatible with a Convention right, a court may make a declaration of incompatibility, whereupon the expectation is that Parliament will address the problem. As we shall see below, this human rights framework has been influential in shaping the law of England and Wales with respect to the status of transsexual and transgender persons.

    THE PRINCIPAL LEGAL SOURCES ON THE LEGAL STATUS OF TRANS PERSONS

    The legal status of transsexual and transgender persons in England and Wales is regulated in statute principally by the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which was enacted on 1 July 2004 and largely implemented on 4 April 2005. The recent enactment of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which, as its title suggests, permits same-sex marriage, has necessitated several consequential amendments to the 2004 Act, in particular to address the impact of a change of gender on an existing marriage or on a civil partnership (which in English law is a status confined to same-sex couples).

    In the absence of the applicability of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the law with regard to a person's legal gender is to be found in judicial decisions (the common law). Interestingly, both the context in which the modern English common law position was established, and also that which provided the final impetus for the enactment of the 2004 legislation, was the issue of whether a transgender person should be able to marry.

  • Transgenderism and Transsexuality: Medical and Psychological Viewpoints

  • from PART I - MEDICAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 11-24

  • Summary

    HISTORICAL SKETCH

    THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY

    The first two clinical cases of the phenomenon later termed transsexualism were described in 1838 by the French psychiatrist Étienne Esquirol, and in 1853 by the German psychiatrist Hieronymus Fränkel. At that time, however, the cases did not attract much public attention. It was only at the end of the 19th century, with the advent of Forensic Psychiatry and Sexology in Austria, Germany and some other European countries, that the phenomenon was studied more closely, and that medical doctors began to think about how they could help their patients. A very influential case study by Carl Westphal, a German psychiatrist, published in 1870, classified his patient as suffering from a delusion. At that time, patients with delusions were usually treated in closed psychiatric hospitals. Persons who would today be classified as male-to-female transsexual individuals, and who engaged in sexual interaction, were – depending on the country in which they were living – at risk of being criminalised for homosexual behaviour and of being sentenced to a term of imprisonment. In Germany, laws against male homosexuality were only revoked at the end of the 1960s, and I have met a number of transsexual persons who served prison sentences for having engaged in sexual partnerships with men before being finally accepted for appropriate treatment, not easily available in Germany in the 1950s.

    The first sex change operation, as it was then called, was performed in 1912 in Berlin on a female-to-male transsexual individual. However, it was some years before Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneer in sexology, referred to the case in the scientific literature. It is my assumption that this delay in reporting may have been due to the fear of the surgeon involved being accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm on a healthy person, which was, and still is, a crime. At that time, the terms transsexualism and transgenderism had not yet been coined and were unknown. A number of further sex reassignment surgeries were performed in Prague (then Czechoslovakia), Berlin and Dresden (Germany) in the 1920s.

  • Argentina

  • from North and South America
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 571-584

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    ACT NO. 26.743 ON GENDER IDENTITY

    Self-Identification and Perception

    In Argentina, the current law on the legal recognition of preferred gender is set out in Act No. 26.743 (‘Gender Identity Act’ or ‘2012 Act’), which was enacted in May 2012. The Gender Identity Act has established a radically new regime for legal gender recognition in Argentina, moving away from the previous, courtcentred system towards a process which prioritises the self-identification and self-perception of transgender individuals. This new departure is evident not only in the way persons can obtain legal recognition but also in the extended and simplified rights which transgender individuals now enjoy regarding appropriate health care. The far-reaching changes which have been enacted by the 2012 Act are evident in Article 2 of the 2012 Act, which defines ‘gender identity’ as ‘the internal and individual way in which gender is perceived by persons, that can correspond or not to the gender assigned at birth, including the personal experience of the body’ (emphasis added). Article 2 continues that a person's perception of their own gender ‘can involve modifying bodily appearance or functions through pharmacological, surgical or other means, provided it is freely chosen.’ Gender identity also includes ‘other expressions of gender such as dress, ways of speaking and gestures.’

    Argentina's Constitutional Regime

    The Gender Identity Act is a product of Argentina's constitutional environment, particularly the right to privacy set out in Article 19 of the National Constitution. Article 19 declares that ‘private personal’ acts, which offend neither public order nor morals and which do not harm third parties, fall within God's will and are not subject to review by judges. Under Article 19, a person cannot be compelled to engage in any act which is not prescribed by law nor can he be prevented from actions which are not proscribed by law. Article 75, subsection 22, incorporates a number of international treaties, conventions and charters into Argentina's constitutional regime. These international agreements, many of which have already recognised the protection of individuals on the basis of gender identity, include, inter alia, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights.

  • New Zealand

  • from Australia and New Zealand
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 527-568

  • Summary

    TERMINOLOGY AND CULTURAL AND LEGAL CONTEXT

    Aotearoa New Zealand is a common law jurisdiction, with a Parliament and legal system based on the British Westminster system of government, following colonisation in the 19th century. Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa and signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi, which Māori consider to allow them to retain self-governance rights and, in particular, Māori customary law.

    Pre-colonial Māori communities were ‘inclusive of whakawāhine’ (a Māori term describing someone born with a male body who has a female gender identity). More recently takatāpui has been reclaimed as a term to describe gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans Māori.

    Today Māori whakawāhine and tangata ira tane (a Māori term describing someone born with a female body who has a male gender identity) remain visible within takatāpui communities. A support network for Māori trans people (Tapatoru), based on the traditional concept of whānau or family, now exists. There are many predominantly Pākehā (European) or Tauiwi (non-Māori) networks.

    New Zealand also has a large Pacific Island population, many of whom acknowledge males who take on traditional female social roles (such as fa'sfafine in Samoa and fakaleiti in Tonga). It is therefore not surprising that the people who made submissions to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission's Transgender Inquiry (see further at section 2.1 below) referred to themselves using a range of terms, including transgender, male-to-female (MtF) and female-to-male (FtM) transsexuals, cross-dressers, queens, intersex, androgynous, genderqueer, takatāpui, fa'sfafine, fakaleiti, whakawahine and tangata ira tane.

    In this chapter, as in To Be Who I Am: Report of the Inquiry into Discrimination Experienced by Transgender People (the Report of the Transgender Inquiry), the term ‘trans’ will be used when it is necessary to use a generic term to describe all of the identities listed above. That is, to describe all those ‘who identify their gender in some way in opposition or outside the gender role which they are meant to fulfil as a result of their sex designation at birth.’

    The focus of this chapter, as elsewhere in this book, is on the issues for trans people who wish to have their ‘nominated sex’ (the sex they self-identify with) recognised as their legal sex (for the purposes of official identity documentation).

  • Preface

    • By Jens M. Scherpe, University of Cambridge, England, and University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    This book is the result of a research project conducted under the auspices of the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law (CMEL) of the University of Hong Kong, which involved a major international conference on 6 and 7 September 2013 at the University of Hong Kong. It was conceived and planned during my CSAH/CSHSS Early Career Fellowship at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), and I am very grateful to the Centre for providing me with the opportunities to work on and discuss my ideas at a very early stage with colleagues from a great number of disciplines. I am equally grateful to my referees for my application for this fellowship, Prof. John Bell (Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge) and Dr Jude Browne (The Jessica and Peter Frankopan Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies), not only for their references but also their continuing support. The project also built on a previous event, the Symposium ‘Challenging Gender, Gender Challenges’, held as the St John's College Martin Lectures at the University of Hong Kong on 11 December 2010 and very generously supported by St John's College/University of Hong Kong and particularly the Master of the College, Rev. Dr Eric Chong.

    The support the project has received in Hong Kong was overwhelming, and I would like to thank (in no particular order) Prof. Scott Veitch, Prof. Philip Beh, Prof. Johannes Chan, Prof. Marco Wan (all of the University of Hong Kong), Dr Chih-hsing Ho (now at the Academia Sinica, Taiwan), Dr Anthony Ng (Wyng Foundation), Michael Vidler (Vidler & Co), Rev. Dr Eric Chong (Master of St. John's College/University of Hong Kong), the students of the 2013 ‘Comparative Family Law’ class at the University of Hong Kong, Earl Deng (barrister-at-law, Chambers of Denis Chang QC SC), Marco Chan, Au Yun Ling, and particularly Polly Yiu who at the time was the administrator of the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law (CMEL) and who managed the conference with all its difficulties with almost superhuman efficiency.

  • Metamorphosis and (Trans) Migrations: Spiritual Dimensions of Gender Transition

  • from PART II - CHRISTIAN VIEWS
    • By Christina Beardsley, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London and St Mary's University, Twickenham, London, England
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 77-100

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    In this chapter I explore two images to illuminate some spiritual dimensions of gender transition. By gender transition I mean the rite of passage by which a transgender person exchanges one mode of gendered living for another. Terms like ‘female-to-male’, ‘male-to-female’, or the notion of exchanging either a male or female presentation for a transgender or gender neutral one, are not simply crude, imprecise, and incapable of capturing the lived reality of that experience. They are also misleading. For example, transgender people often protest that they have never had a sense of belonging to their assigned gender, and that the ‘journey’, such as it was, hardly constituted a watershed. Indeed, they are more likely to view transition as the means to confirm and facilitate the recognition of their gender identity, which is an enduring aspect of their self-understanding, and not something that has been altered or amended by the process of transition.

    Nevertheless, some changes will have occurred. For example, changing one name to match one's own internal sense of gender identity, which might seem a minimal step, can feel momentous to some people. (At the Conference in Hong Kong it was explained that name change is not especially significant for local transgender people as Chinese first names tend to be gender neutral.) Transition may also involve what others may assume to be ‘cross-gendered’ dressing and behaviours, and so-called cosmetic procedures, such as electrolysis, or more extensive interventions, like hormone therapy and surgery. In some transgender people's narratives, these and other features of gender transition are often presented as life-changing – and frequently as life-saving.

    They can also be portrayed as spiritually significant, especially in contrast to the earlier stages of the narrative, where the person is often oppressed by a negative spirituality associated with a sense of unease, or potential conflict with their environment, lack of self-awareness, denial, low self-esteem, or with feelings of entrapment. At some stage, though, spirituality can begin to assume a positive character with the emergence of an overwhelming need to challenge and overcome these limitations, however great a struggle that might entail, in order to be true to one's own sense of gender identity.

  • Questionnaire

  • from PART III - LEGAL VIEWS
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 103-106

  • Summary

    The purpose of the questionnaire approach is to ensure that the same areas and problems are covered in each national report. Some of the points might not be of relevance in some jurisdictions – but that in itself can be valuable information from a comparative point of view.

    The questionnaire is meant as a guideline and tool and not a straitjacket into which the information must fit. The main aim is that each national report, while following roughly the same structure, is self-contained and readable. Many of the legal rules can only be understood in their full legal, social and cultural context, and a contextual description should not be prevented by rigidly following the questionnaire. Please feel free to add any information you consider relevant. However, in order to make the book and the comparison accessible to readers, please follow the structure indicated with Roman numbers (that said, broadly following the Arabic numbering would presumably be very helpful, too!).

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    1. Are there/were there specific legal rules dealing with transsexual or transgender persons in your jurisdiction (especially: is there a specific statute or merely an administrative/court practice)?

    Please also describe the historic development leading up to the current law (and the general constitutional/legal framework where appropriate).

    2. Please state what the position of the national health insurance (or equivalent) and/or private health insurance is with regard to costs arising from medical/ psychological treatment where such is legally required/sought.

    3. Please give (where available) statistical information, especially:

  • • (estimated) number of transsexual and transgender persons in your jurisdiction and number of changes of legal sex and/or legal gender (if possible with breakdown of numbers of those persons affirming a female/ feminine and male/masculine legal identity);

  • • number of persons changing their legal sex and/or legal gender that were in an existing formal legal relationship (such as marriage and/or civil/ registered partnership);

  • • number of persons changing their legal sex and/or legal gender who had children at the time of the change (and, if possible, number of persons who became parents after changing legal sex and/or legal gender);

  • • any other relevant/interesting statistical information.

  • Denmark

  • from Europe
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    28 November 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2015, pp 147-182

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    SPECIFIC LEGAL RULES DEALING WITH TRANSSEXUAL OR TRANSGENDER PERSONS

    The General Constitutional Framework of Denmark

    Denmark is a small Scandinavian country with a population of approximately 5.6 million (2014). Denmark is characterised by a high standard of living, the highest taxes in the world, democracy, and universal welfare services, such as free health care and free education. The labour market is flexible, the Danish Model, and men and women work almost the same number of hours. Around 11% of the population are immigrants or their descendants. Denmark is a member of, inter alia, the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Denmark is reported to have the lowest levels of corruption in the world, and Danish people are supposedly the happiest individuals.

    The legal foundation in Denmark is the Constitution. Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, and the powers of state are divided between three institutions. The legislative power rests with the Parliament and the king (the government), the executive power belongs to the king (the government), and the judicial power is invested in the courts, who interpret and apply legislation and regulations.

    Statutory laws – in the form of Acts – are passed by the Parliament. Parliament can, and does, delegate rulemaking competencies to administrative bodies (the Ministries) through Acts. The Ministries issue Administrative Orders, which cannot expand or derogate from the delegated mandate. Administrative orders are binding, whereas Administrative Guidelines, issued according to Administrative Orders, are binding for public authorities only, not private citizens. Lower level rules cannot derogate from or expand upper level rules – a distinct hierarchical system of regulation. Public authorities administrate the rights and obligations of citizens, and manage the everyday application of rules in real life. The authorities must apply their discretionary powers in accordance with the procedures and within the framework of the rules (Acts, Administrative Orders, Administrative Guidelines, and the recognised principles of public administration, such as the principle of equality). The rule of law is a fundamental principle in the Danish legal system.

Page 319 of 386