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Serial Numbers 3295 - 3933 / 2008-03-05 Chapter 9: The Thought Experiment Open Letter on Scientific Freedom Sent to the 639 Members of the Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer [Society of German Constitutional-Law Teachers] At a conference held in October 2005 the Society of German Constitutional-Law Teachers had addressed the topic of “Grund und Grenzen der Wissenschaftsfreiheit” [Reasons for and Limitations of Scientific Freedom]. In their publication of volume 65, “Kultur und Wissenschaft” [Culture and Science], Berlin 2006, they had reported on this (pp 110-237). The society’s statutes (pp 609-611) envisage in section § 1, point 3, the possibility of public statements made by the society. Enclosed: 1 CD-ROM with all of the publications of the research project. In the “Open Letter” G. O. Mueller formulates, as a layman in the field of jurisdiction after reading the “Bonner Kommentar” [Bonn Commentary] on the German constitution and the interpretations given at the conference held by the society, the legal position of the project in 10 theses, and requests examination of the submitted problem of scientific freedom in theoretical physics. Extracts: “Thesis 1 - Scientific freedom is decisive for an open, critical and fruitful development of every special field. Thesis 2 - Scientific freedom implies the participation of the representatives of all of the various positions in the scientific dialogue and in the research funding of a subject. Thesis 3 - Scientific freedom is guaranteed in Article 5, point 3 of the German Constitution as a basic right that, in keeping with Art. 1, paragraph 3 of the German Constitution (“The following basic rights oblige legislation, executive powers and the judiciary as directly valid law.”) is directly valid, i.e. needs no further special law and no instruction or ruling by any other authority to establish its validity. Thesis 4 - A limitation or refusal of scientific freedom vis-à-vis individual scientists in a specialist field would constitute a violation of this person’s basic rights. Thesis 5 - The expulsion and complete exclusion of critical minority viewpoints from a specialist field by the majority of this specialist field would not only be a serious violation of the basic rights of individuals, but would also amount to the abolition of this basic right for the entire specialist field. Thesis 6 - A complete exclusion of minority viewpoints from a specialist field would also violate the freedom of choice of career, which is also guaranteed by the German Constitution, in that persons interested in pursuing the career in question but expressing critical views as to the dominating majority view would be refused permission to sit their final academic examinations. Thesis 7 - According to civil-service law, the civil servants representing an academic science in senior positions are obliged, through their oaths of office, to abide by the Constitution and to take an active role, at all times, in supporting the enforcement of the Constitution. With the complete exclusion of critical minority viewpoints from the scientific discussion of a specialist field the civil-servant representatives of this specialist field would abolish the basic right of all scientists of the specialist field to scientific freedom and would thereby break their oaths of office. (As a reminder: in the Federal Republic of Germany there have already been cases involving applicants who were rejected solely on the suspicion that they might not necessarily take action in support of the 146 G. O. Mueller: STR 2012
German Constitution.) Chapter 9: The Thought Experiment These 8 - If a holder of office in a field of academic science should misuse his or her power and influence in order to maintain secrecy with respect to such an exclusion of critical minority viewpoints from the specialist field already undertaken, and should even deliberately extenuate the situation to include the powerhouses of the publicopinion-forming process in the editorial staffs of the journalistic, the print and the electronic mass media, the publishers and the educational system, then a bringing-into-line of the reporting branches would have been organized and the unsuspecting public would have been deceived as to the true condition of the specialist field of science. Thesis 9 - The abolition of the basic right of scientific freedom through complete expulsion of critical minority viewpoints from a specialist field would give rise, amongst other things, to loss of the necessary corrective influence and important impulses for new approaches in the field and would thereby, in the end, constitute a risk of faulty scientific developments. Thesis 10 - The abolition of a basic right for an entire scientific subject would stand in marked contrast to the efforts made in the Federal Republic of Germany and by the European Union in terms of legislation supporting equal rights for all citizens before the law, and in support of human rights and, in particular, against all and any type of discrimination, e.g. due to gender, or sexual orientation, or to descent, or religion or to ideology. [...] In view of the treatment of the problems at your conference in October 2005, we base our hopes on your willingness to seriously examine our concern. Should this examination give rise to a positive result such that you regard the matter as an “important case on questions of public law”, we would then ask you to consider the possibility foreseen in the statutes of your society section § 1, point 3, of “issuing a statement by submission to governments or people’s representatives or by written announcement”.” 2012 The text is published in the Internet under: http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/2008_staatsrechtslehrer.pdf [Rechtswiss. = Jurisprudence] Abelein, Manfred - Rechtswiss. (Ellwangen a.d. Jagst) Adamovich, Ludwig - Rechtswiss., Präsident d. Österr. Verfassungsgerichtshofs, Wien Albers, Marion - Rechtswiss., Helmut-SchmidtUniversität, Hamburg Alexy, Robert - Rechtswiss., Univ. Kiel Alleweldt, Ralf - Rechtswiss., Univ. Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder Anderheiden, Michael - Rechtswiss., Univ. Heidelberg Antoniolli, Walter - Rechtswiss., Univ. Wien Appel, Ivo - Rechtswiss., Univ. Augsburg Arnauld, Andreas v. - Rechtswiss., FU Berlin Arndt, Hans-Wolfgang - Rechtswiss., Univ.Mannheim Arnim, Hans Herbert v. - Rechtswiss., Dt. Hochschule f. Verwaltungswiss., Speyer Arnold, Rainer - Rechtswiss., Univ. Regensburg Aulehner, Josef - Rechtswiss., Univ. München Autexier, Christian - Rechtswiss., Univ. Saarbrücken Axer, Peter - Rechtswiss., Univ. Trier Baade, Hans W. - Rechtswiss., Univ. Austin, Texas Bachof, Otto - Rechtswiss., Univ. Tübingen Badura, Peter - Rechtswiss., Univ. München Baer, Susanne - Rechtswiss., HU Berlin Baldus, Manfred - Rechtswiss., Univ. Erfurt Barfuß, Walter - Rechtswiss., Präsident des Österreichischen Normungsinstituts, Wien Bartlsperger, Richard - Rechtswiss., Univ. Erlangen Battis, Ulrich - Rechtswiss., HU Berlin Bauer, Hartmut - Rechtswiss., TU Dresden 147 G. O. Mueller: STR
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