Webinar series #GFFSpotlight: for fundamental rights in court
GFF brings strategic lawsuits to enforce fundamental rights - right now, more than 50 cases are pending before German courts. During this series of webinar in German, they intent to give an exciting insight into one of the cases every month.
Each month, in an evening webinar, will be presented a particularly important case or project. These cases are particularly close to our hearts because they bring fundamental rights abuses to court for the first time, because they involve particularly serious violations of fundamental rights, or because we use them to attack complex power structures and engage in a “David versus Goliath” battle.
In each evening, there is a crisp hour of “Spotlight on” – information, background and context on one of our strategic proceedings.
The GFF colleagues in charge of the case will present the case and its special features, talk to a guest and answer questions from the audience. Why does this fundamental rights abuse have to go to court? What hurdles must be overcome? Each guest brings another exciting perspective from the outside – this can be a plaintiff, an expert or a cooperation partner.
For a self-determined love life before the Federal Constitutional Court
The kick-off will be the presentation of the planned constitutional complaint with the Bundeswehr officer Anastasia Biefang on October 11 at 6 pm. She cashed a reprimand from the Bundeswehr for her dating profile, which the Federal Administrative Court confirmed in May 2022.
Lea Beckmann and Anastasia Biefang present the case and its history. From the perspective of the lawyer and the complainant, they report on why the Federal Constitutional Court must correct this encroachment on the right to a self-determined love life, what fundamental rights issues arise, what hurdles must be overcome.
Do fundamental rights also oblige digital corporations?
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On November 17 at 6 p.m., Jürgen Bering will talk with Professor Juliane Mendelsohn (TU Ilmenau) about whether and how fundamental rights bind digital corporations like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The market power of these companies and their influence on fundamental rights are so great, don’t they also have to take corresponding responsibility for protecting fundamental rights? The BGH assumed this in a ruling on Facebook in 2021 and established important first principles – but many questions remain unanswered.
Jürgen Bering published two studies in 2022 on the fundamental rights binding of social networks and the binding of AppStores. He will report on these lawsuits and the studies on November 17. Juliane Mendelsohn will round off the evening with her scientific expertise on “Power in Private”.
#OhneAngstZum Arzt: For the right to health care before the Federal Constitutional Court
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On December 8 at 7 p.m., Sarah Lincoln will present a constitutional complaint in which survival is at stake. The complainant – an undocumented Kosovar with a heart condition – is effectively unable to get the medical care he needs.
When he applies for treatment at the social welfare office, the social welfare office reports him to the immigration office and he is threatened with deportation. Sarah Lincoln reports on the special circumstances of this constitutional complaint, which had to be filed anonymously, and on the human rights basis.
Janina Gach, of Doctors of the Worls, adds the perspective of an organization that itself provides voluntary basic medical treatment for people without papers and is familiar with the extent of this structural human rights abuse. Doctors of the World has been fighting for years with an alliance of over 80 organizations – including GFF – to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of undocumented people in Germany can #OhneAnchtZumArzt.
In order to achieve this, the obligation to provide information to the foreigners authorities must be abolished, and the need for action has even been recognized by the government of the traffic light coalition. However, the announcement in the coalition agreement to address the issue has so far remained inconsequential.
For more detalis about the event click here.
Illustrations by Bernard Leitner.