Human dignity
“Human dignity shall be inviolable.” The foundation of all fundamental rights — and the reference point in debates on victim protection and on the treatment of suspects alike.
§ 20 — Policy · Constitutional Rights
Article by article.
Every justice policy is measured against the Basic Law. These are the articles at the centre of the debates of 2025 and 2026.
Equality
Equality before the law and equality of women and men. Invoked in the proposals on femicide and in family-law reform.
Criminal Law →Expression & press
Freedom of opinion and of the press. Relevant to digital-violence offences, incitement law and source protection in the IP-storage debate.
Digital Crime →Privacy of communications
The secrecy of correspondence and telecommunications. The constitutional core of the data-retention controversy since 2010.
IP addresses →Effective legal protection
Recourse to the courts against public authority. Court capacity and procedure determine whether this guarantee works in practice.
Justice Reform →Democracy & rule of law
Binding of all state power to law; the right to resist those who seek to abolish the constitutional order.
Rule of Law →The Constitutional Court
Since December 2024, key structural rules of the Federal Constitutional Court are anchored in the Basic Law itself.
Judicial independence
Judges are independent and subject only to the law. Threats against judges and attacks on judicial candidates are a recurring theme of Hubig’s speeches.
Resilience
Protecting the institutions that protect rights
The 2024 amendment. In December 2024, before Hubig took office, the Bundestag and Bundesrat amended the Basic Law to entrench the status of the Federal Constitutional Court: its two senates of eight judges, twelve-year terms, the age limit, the exclusion of re-election and a fallback mechanism if judicial elections are blocked.
Lay judges. In June 2026 Hubig announced that lay judges (Schöffen) must commit to the free democratic basic order, and proposed measures to prevent extremist parties from blocking the election of judges, citing a case in Thuringia.
The 2025 election of constitutional judges. In July 2025 the Bundestag’s election of three constitutional judges was postponed after support for the SPD’s candidate, the constitutional lawyer Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, collapsed in the CDU/CSU group; she withdrew in August. Hubig, who had no formal role in the election, publicly regretted the withdrawal, described the campaign against the candidate as problematic for the rule of law and called for more care and objectivity in such debates.
Defensive democracy. The proposal to allow courts to remove eligibility for office after convictions for incitement is defended as democracy protecting itself and criticised by bar associations as constitutionally doubtful. See Criticism & Controversies.
Sources
- Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany — gesetze-im-internet.de
- LTO, Bundesrat approves constitutional amendment on the Federal Constitutional Court, December 2024 — lto.de
- beck-aktuell, Hubig on consequences of the withdrawal of Brosius-Gersdorf, 8 August 2025
- LTO and beck-aktuell, constitutional loyalty of lay judges, 15 June 2026