The Anthology of Swiss Legal Culture

 

Cluster "Philosophy of Law and General Jurisprudence"

 

5^th Section "Insights into the Philosophical Dimensions of Rule of Law and Constitutionalism"

 

Entry 5.17 "Peter Saladin, Verantwortung als Staatsprinzip"

 

Selected, Elaborated and Discussed by Michael Walter Hebeisen

 

 

 

Author: Peter Saladin

 

Title: Verantwortung als Staatsprinzip – Ein neuer Schlüssel zur Lehre vom modernen Rechtsstaat

 

Edition(s): Bern/ Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1984, pp. 40-81

 

 

 

[Introduction/Historical Situation and Systematic Context]

 

To found human rights and individual freedoms on responsibility in modern times goes back to the conception of constitutional rights in Max Weber’s understanding, comprehensive sociology (see Winfried Brugger: Menschenrechtsethos und Verantwortungspolitik – Max Webers Beitrag zur Analyse und Begründung der Menschenrechte, Freiburg und München: Karl Alber, 1980). In modern theory of democracy, the concept of responsibility has been explored as a founding principle by Amitai Etzioni (Die Verantwortungsgesellschaft – Individualismus und Moral in der heutigen Demokratie (The New Golden Rule – Community and Morality in a Democratic Society). Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus, 1997). Responsibility has also been discussed in the tension between freedom and democracy (compare Eberhard Döring / Walter Döring: Philosophie der Demokratie bei Kant und Popper – Zum Verhältnis von Freiheit und Verantwortung, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1995). A classical writing in this context has become Jonas, Hans: Das Prinzip Verantwortung – Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, vol. 1085, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984; for a comprehensive interpretation see Jörg Schubert: Das "Prinzip Verantwortung" als verfassungsstaatliches Rechtsprinzip – Rechtsphilosophische und verfassungsrechtliche Betrachtungen zur Verantwortungsethik von Hans Jonas (Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie und Rechtstheorie, vol. 18; Dissertation Universität Bayreuth 1998). Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1998). In a sociological and anthropological dimension, responsibility is endangered by the tendency to render duties anonymous (Paul Trappe: Über die Anonymisierung von Verantwortung, in: Recht und Gesellschaft, Festschrift für Helmut Schelsky zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Friedrich Kaulbach and Werner Krawietz, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1978; compare the well-known thesis by Ulrich Beck, according to which dangers and risks tend to be distributed democratically: Risikogesellschaft, Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986). In Switzerland an early collective volume is to be mentioned, focusing on the relation between humanism and responsibility (und politische Verantwortung, Erlenbach-Zürich/ Stuttgart: Eugen Rentsch, 1964). This selection is far away from being representative and shows the virulence of the concept of responsibility in scientific disciplines with diverse methodologies.

 

 

 

[Content, Abstracts/Conclusions, Insights, Evidence]

 

Peter Saladin has provided a fecund application of the principle of responsibility in the domain of state theory in his book from 1984, entitled “Verantwortung als Staatsprinzip”, and he has proposed it as a key for a better understanding of the modern state, based on rule of law. We skip the analytical attempt to define responsibility in a pragmatic and topological manner, and enter the discussion, where it comes to identify responsibility as a constitutive element of various principles of the modern state and of the rule of law. Separation of powers, representation, participation and fundamental rights are detected as such domains, where divided responsibility takes place. The problem lies in the form of division, every aspect of responsibility allows, in contrast to a personal duty. However, this tendency is not only to be considered as a deficiency, but also as enabling to share heavy burdens one single person could never bear.

 

Peter Saladin continues reflections made by Montesquieu, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Emmanuel de Sieyès, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and comes to the conclusion that responsibility is the counterpart to freedom, as duties are the counterpart to rights. However, during the nineteenth century, this connection has been too weak and feeble. “Erst im 20. Jahrhundert setzte sich der Gedanke durch, dass die Gewährleistung rechtlicher Freiheit notwendig das Überbinden rechtlicher Verantwortung einschliesst – notwendig im logischen und im sozialen Sinn: Freiheit jedes einzelnen ist – dies freilich schon die Erkenntnis der klassischen Menschenrechtserklärungen – nicht denkbar ohne Repekt jedes einzelnen vor der Freiheit jedes anderen; und soziale Ziele lassen sich nicht erreichen, wenn sie die Macht des ‘Freien’ nicht paart mit rechtlich fixierter Verantwortung für die sozial-orientierte Ausübung seiner Freiheit”.

 

The question of legal responsibility for the pre-conditions to act as a collective in freedom, directly leads to the conceptions of tasks as concrete duties: “Eine Lehre der Staats-Verantwortung ist damit notwendig eine Lehre der Staatsaufgaben und der Voraussetzungen und Verfahren, wie diese ermittel, festgelgt und erfüllt werden können”. Such assignments of duties to the state as such and to its organs, become problematic when it comes to fulfilling social rights, to allocate collective goods. “Der Mangel an systematischem Nachdenken über Staatsaufgaben – allgemeiner: über Staatszwecke – ist mit-schuldig am oft beklagten Schwinden der Überzeugung von Sinn und Notwendigkeit des modernen ‘westlichen’ Staates. [...] Die inhaltliche Beliebigkeit, die der Glaube an ausschliesslich prozedurale Legitimation impliziert, ist ein Luxus, den wir uns nicht mehr leisten können”. We have undertaken an attempt to analyse the structure of finalistic determination of state action in our monography on “Staatszweck, Staatsziele und Staatsaufgaben – Leistungen und Grenzen einer juristischen Behandlung von Leitideen der Staatstätigkeit”, re-constructing the foundations of the teleological determination of responsibility within the history of ideas, in retrospect (Chur/ Zürich: Rüegger, 1996). Peter Saladin himself has – with our collaboration – asked the critical question about the sense of the state in the future (Wozu noch Staaten? – Zu den Funktionen eines modernen demokratischen Rechtsstaats in einer zunehmend überstaatlichen Welt, Bern: Stämpfli, 1995). Hereby the analytical identification of responsibility as a founding principle of the modern state based on the rule of law is continued in prospective.

 

 

 

[Further Information About the Author]

 

Peter Saladin, born 4 February 1935 in Basel, died 25 May 1997 in Berne, studied jurisprudence at the University of Basel, where he received a doctorate in 1961, being a scholar of Max Imboden. After having practised as a lawyer, he went to the Freie Universität Berlin and to the Michigan Law School in 1962/1963. He then joined the federal administration, worked for the federal department of justice and was secretary of the scientific council. In 1969 he presented his habilitation thesis, a standard work on “Grundrechte im Wandel”, published in 1970. From 1972 he was ordinary professor for public law at the University of Basel, and between 1976 until his death he was professor of constitutional and administrative law at the University of Berne. He was mainly occupied with public church law, invested himself to the promotion of ecology and claimed rights of nature, and intended to also take into consideration the rights of future generations. His core interest remained the preservation of the dignity of every single human being. In 1991 he received the honour of doctor honoris causa by the University of Geneva.

 

Our interest in his broad publications consists in his revolution of the doctrine of rule of law by introducing the concept of responsibility into the legal order.

 

For further information, please consult:

 

Diemut Majer: Peter Saladin, in: Staatsrechtslehrer des 20. Jahrhunderts, Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015, pp. 1021 ss.

 

 

 

[Selected Works of the Same Author]

 

Peter Saladin: Grundrechte im Wandel – Die Rechtsprechung des Schweizeri­schen Bundesgerichts zu den Grundrechten in einer sich ändernden Umwelt. Bern: Stämpfli & Cie. AG, 3^rd ed. 1982; Idem: Kleinstaa­ten mit Zukunft? In: Die Kunst der Verfassungsreneuerung, Schriften zur Verfassungsreform 1968-1996, Basel/ Frankfurt am Main: Helbing & Lich­tenhahn, 1998, pp. 361 ss.; Idem: Unerfüllte Bundesverfassung? In: Hun­dert Jahre Bundesverfassung 1874-1984, Die Bundesverfassung gestern, heute, mor­gen (Zeitschrift für Schweizerisches Recht, N. S. vol. 93, vol. 3/ 4, pp. 307 ss.), Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1974.

 

 

 

[For Further Reading]

 

Peter Saladin: Wozu noch Staaten? – Zu den Funktionen eines modernen demokratischen Rechtsstaats in einer zunehmenden überstaatlichen Welt, Bern: Stämpfli, 1995.

 

 

 

15 December 2017                                                                      Michael Walter Hebeisen