“Due Consideration – Humanities in Hamburg – 60 Years of Basic Law“

The year 2009 is a significant year constitutionally – three anniversaries coincide: on 27 May 1849 the constitution of the German Reich, the first enacted democratic constitution, was proclaimed by the constituent National Assembly; on 11 May 1919 the Weimar Constitution was enacted; and on 8 May 1949 the Parliamentary Council adopted the Basic Law, which was proclaimed and signed on 23 May 1949 in Bonn.

The event series “nachgedacht – 60 Jahre Grundgesetz” [Due Consideration – 60 Years of Basic Law] from 24 March to 19 May 2009 spent five evenings examining the topics of exemplary dimensions of the Basic Law, legal, social and political, as well as the way it has been received in the arts.

The Hans Bredow Institute organised the third evening of the series: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, until 2008 a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court and honorary member of the Institute’s board, joined Wolfgang Schulz, director of the Hans Bredow Institute, in providing insight into the work of the Federal Constitutional Court on the issue of the freedom of opinion, as guaranteed by Article 5 of the Basic Law, and also elucidated verdicts of the Federal Constitutional Court, on freedom of opinion to demonstrate  how a constitution “learns”.

Information about the individual topics, dates and lecturers, as well as about participating institutions can be found at www.nachgedacht-hamburg.de.

Alongside the Institute, participating institutions were the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, Bucerius Law School, the Hamburg Institute for Social Studies, the State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky as well as the ZEIT Foundation Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.