Generalklauseln

The principle of 'lawfulnes' laid down in the constitution requires public administration to be regulated by parliamentary laws and to be monitored by the courts. Hinnerk Wißmann shows that fundamental rights in particular form a convincing basis from the perspective of the constitutional system and legal history for a corresponding comprehensive, formally rational distribution of state functions. In this case, the administration's 'independence' is the functional and the legal abutment of this basic order. Its managerial function can frequently not even be reconstructed in a model as an 'application' of laws. This means that the lawfulness of the administration must be developed further into a differentiating controlling and monitoring association. In doing so, it will be impossible to do without blanket clauses as a special type of regulation.

ist Geschäftsführender Direktor des Freiherr-vom-Stein-Instituts und Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Ãffentliches Recht, Verwaltungswissenschaften, Kultur- und Religionsverfassungsrecht an der Universität Münster.