Federal purpose (German Confederation)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fort Thüngen as part of the Luxemburg Fortress , a German federal fortress until 1866/1867. The maintenance of such fortresses was one of the main concrete tasks of the German Confederation.

The federal purpose of the German Confederation was limited by the Federal Constitution, i.e. the Federal Act and the Vienna Final Act . Since the federation was essentially a federation of states and not a federal state , it had no universal state purpose . If the federal constitution did not expressly grant him a subject, then it was assumed that the member states were responsible for it.

competence

The Federal Act of 1815 stated little about jurisdiction or competence. Therefore, in the Vienna Final Act of 1820, it was stated that the purposes were “conditional and limited” (Art. 3) by its powers. In this way, the federal government should be able to obtain all the means to fulfill its purposes. There was therefore no catalog of competencies, so that the federal government was theoretically very free to set federal law . By federal law, he had to provide the "organic federal facilities" in order to realize the goals of the federal government.

However, the federal purpose was limited to the security aspects. Even on this basis, one could have developed many federal powers. However, the German governments showed little willingness to use the possibilities, at least not for external security through reform of the Federal War Constitution .

Federal goals

According to the federal act (Art. 2), the federal government's goal was:

"The preservation of the external and internal security of Germany and the independence and inviolability of the individual German states."

This meant security for the whole of the federal government as well as for the individual federal members. The federal government should settle disputes between the federal members, protect the federal members from each other and from foreign enemies and stand up for peace and order. The instruments for this were the Federal War and the instruments of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, federal intervention and federal execution . There was no federal jurisdiction with a permanent federal court, but if necessary a special court could be convened via the Austrägalordnung .

Debate on expanding the federal purpose

So-called general welfare, i.e. cultural, economic and social affairs, were not provided for in the original federal purpose. Article 6 of the Federal Act probably mentioned “non-profit orders of any other kind” among those subjects that could only be dealt with in the plenary session of the Bundestag. In theory, at least, this opened up the possibility of discussing other than security aspects. However, Article 64 of the Vienna Final Act made it clear that a plenary vote on it should only result in an agreement between the federal members. So it was not about a federal competence, but about working towards the fact that the states enact laws. Ernst Rudolf Huber speaks of “German contract laws” in the sense of identical state laws and cites the General German Commercial Code of 1861 as an example .

When efforts were made to reform the federal government , especially after 1848, an extension of the federal purpose was usually called for. The topics were a standardization of the law in Germany, a common trade policy and customs policy as well as uniform weights and measures. However, this did not happen until the end of the Confederation in 1866, even though Bundestag commissions did deal with these matters.

supporting documents

  1. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber : German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830 . 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 597/598.
  2. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830 . 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 598.
  3. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830 . 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 594/595.
  4. ^ Michael Kotulla : German constitutional history. From the Old Reich to Weimar (1495–1934) . Springer, Berlin 2008, pp. 335/399.
  5. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830 . 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 602.