Holder of the Centre: On the Constitutional Thought of Dieter Grimm

Abstract

Having in mind the famous poem of William Yeats The Second Coming, one can perhaps say that Dieter Grimm is a holder of the centre. This means essentially, and without claims to be exhaustive, the following aspects: (i) he has a balanced view of the relationship between social justice and democracy; (ii) he presents a nuanced defence of the objective dimension of fundamental rights, one of the main innovations of the jurisprudence of the German Constitutional Court; (iii) he strikes a fair balance between the claims of democracy and judicial review; (iv) he is conscious of globalization processes while also affirming the essentiality of the Nation-state for the constitutional life of a people, being a supporter of Europe but also of the sovereignty of the German state, as well as of other Member States of the European Union; (v) finally, Dieter Grimm defends European constitutionalism against the American view of constitutionalism as constraint and some extreme views of transformative constitutionalism.

Keywords: Constitutionalism, objective dimension of fundamental rights, judicial review, relation between national constitutions and EU law, German Constitutional Court, Dieter Grimm

JEL Classification: k10, k30, k40