德国《基本法》中的社会国家原则

从语义解释的角度看,社会国家原则在《联邦德国基本法》(以下简称《基本法》)文本中不具有显著地位,且内容不够明确;但从体系解释而言,该原则享有不得修改的宪法基本原则的突出地位。社会国家原则产生的历史则表明,该原则具有弥补《基本法》中社会基本权利缺失的功能。但社会国家的目的以及社会国家原则保障的基本权利都必须通过立法者制定的法律来加以具体化。联邦宪法法院在发挥社会国家原则的宪法规范功能以及确定社会国家的最低宪法标准方面起到了重要作用。社会国家原则在联邦宪法法院的判决中一般与基本权利条款、基本权利限制条款以及社会国家的目标一起发挥作用,被用来为立法者设定社会权利保护义务或论证限制基本权利的法律规范的正当性。

The Social State Principle in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany

From the perspective of grammatical interpretation the Social State Principle has neither a prominent position nor clear meaning in the text of the Basic Law,but from the aspect of the systematical interpretation it is an important constitutional principle which is unalterable.The history of the Social State Principle suggests that it can to some extent compensate the lack of fundamental social rights in the text of the Basic Law.However,the realization of the goals of Social State and the fundamental social rights depends on the concretization of laws.The Federal Constitutional Court plays a key role while fulfilling the normative function of the Social State Principle and concretizing the constitutional minimum standards of Social State.Together with fundamental rights,restriction of fundamental rights and purposes of Social State,the Social State Principle is generally used in the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision to impose obligation on legislator to protect the fundamental social rights or to justify the statutory intervention into fundamental rights.