Just five minutes…

Dr. Dimitrios Karathanassis 

In: ContraLegem 2021/2, S. 4ff. 

• The change of law  through the acceleration of the economy and social structures.   
•   The law  is  increasingly exposed to  social changes occurring at shorter intervals.  This endangers fundamental principles  of  constitutional law. 

When Marcel Niggli, editor-in-chief and publisher of ContraLegem, asked me if I would like to join the editorial staff of ContraLegem, it took me less than five minutes to accept. This may sound like a quick shot, a lack of consideration, but five minutes is a small eternity in today’s media society. Some may smile, perhaps disagree, even demand a somewhat in-depth clarification from a lawyer, but for a tweet that sends hundreds onto the streets and encourages them to attack people, storm state and private buildings and block roads, it really doesn’t take much longer. So five minutes for a decision is relative. One may rightly object that personal decisions have always been made in significantly shorter periods of time, one thinks of the famous “gut decisions”. But what is acceptable for personal decisions now also seems to apply to social communication through the immediacy of the means of communication (keyword: social media). The tweets already mentioned illustrate this perfectly. 

  It is therefore not surprising that  politicians are desperately trying to   keep up with the   speed of communication in the  media society and that political debates are  increasingly tempo  and  less  This is the  first time that  we have had a debate on this subject in the European Now,  social acceleration in communication is not a phenomenon of  our time, telegrams, telephones and faxes have always  exerted accelerating effects on the respective social structures. And  politics has  always been guided by this stream  of accelerating communication,  for example election campaigns at   the beginning of the 19th century.   It is    located  in  the district of São Paulo. 

What is new, however,  is that the judiciary allows itself to  be harnessed into this game of race.  Of course, if  politics  and its means  of  communication change,  the judiciary will (have to) adapt to it, but for some time  now  ,    It is a  question of  adopting the functioning of the policy tel quel. Focusing  on speed  rather than  content may  be  useful, perhaps even necessary,  for policy,  but it means  that the end rather than the means are  increasingly coming  to the fore.  when it  comes  to formulating and  debating political goals.  For an increasing concentration on tempo  allows only the  intended end  to be formulated, while the explanation of the  means and  the critical consideration of  the  end raise questions of   In this context   ,  it is important to stress the    importance of the role of the social partners in the  competition  because there  is simply no time  for this and because the   audience’s attention span is less and less sufficient for this. The  climate debate makes this very clear: the climate must  be saved and everything must  be subordinated to  this  goal. The discussion as to whether the proposed means (reduction of  CO2 emissions, subsidization of electric cars, etc.)   suitable 5and  appropriate, has little  chance  to develop. 

For the judiciary and the law in general, this  means that  they  increasingly focus on  the purpose and clear  legal institutions and guidelines that  slow down   the – rapid – achievement of  the  purpose.  could be dubbed. The ruling of   the Lausanne District Court – to  stay with the climate debate – which  had protected the occupation of a bank branch  by activists as a justifying emergency, instead of  dismissing it because of   Condemning trespassing   is only one prominent example (cf.  see  our videos 1a and 1b). The reference to  the justifying state of emergency,  which one  cannot get  rid of in any case, was less the result of a clean legal dispute, but arose from  the  The need arises  as a court  to somehow justify the  exculpation of young people,  which is perceived as politically and medially correct (we are not yet to the extent that judgments are given without justification). 

 It is undisputed  that justice  and justice are never completely detached from politics.    Don’t forget  that the country’s top judges  are  nominated by  political parties  (and  are coming under increasing  political pressure).   However, it  is problematic when the  judiciary and the law  adapt to  politics so much  (one is inclined to say: currying favor) that  the boundaries of  political debate  and  legal structures are becoming blurred.  Of course,  this is not a  plea for  justice and a law that  should not change  .  However  , they are intended to provide politics and society with the structures that  we know after so many bad  experiences in Europe’s  past that minorities are minorities.  protect,  guarantee the rule of law and  strive for a balance in the weighting of arguments.  If one  aims only at  the purpose,  the door  opens for a dynamic that  makes maximum demands and  has  no time  for compromises. This is because compromises  are possible  in terms  of means rather than ends.   It remains irrelevant whether the lack of  time is the symptom  of a  fast-paced world  or is used  as a means  of avoiding discussion.  If maximum demands  are then  accompanied by a moral claim to be on the right side of history, then  – despite or precisely because  of the  Claim to do good for all people  – a totalitarian path taken. Hell is known to be  full of people who  wanted good. 

This has become clear in  almost every major political debate in recent months, be it in relation to climate rescue,  women’s rights, gender debate or BlackLivesMatter: The  political actors and the media   do not formulate  negotiable maximum demands, stifle criticism  in the approach and  thus prevent any critical debate.   But those who make maximum demands and place only the purpose at  the centre of  political life  are putting the cart before the horse  .   For while a free society  should  debate the guidelines within which everyone should be  able to develop and  seize their opportunities,  recent  political discussions appear   Always results-oriented.  If one  breaks the whole thing  down to the original element  of every political discussion, that of justice and its core, equality, then   a change of    equal opportunities  emerges.  away and towards  equality of results. 

However, a society that  strives for equality of results  is by definition totalitarian, because equality does not allow other interests to  develop as a  result. All other results are understood as  annoying at best,  as an attack at worst. And a society that  of its own accord  defines  or  allows to be defined  equality of results (what  it must  do in order  to  achieve it) must also necessarily claim to 6the absolute truth   and  to know the good in itself.  Because only if the truth and  the good are known,   the desired result can be  legitimized. A  result that can be  achieved by all, which  is not based  on truth and goodness, is inevitably delegitimized by arbitrariness, so that it  begins to falter.  The fact that the definition  of truth and good is  also  exposed to arbitrariness is  , of course, another  piece of paper. 

 This development is reinforced  by the fact that  equality of results has  it easier in a world that  measures and quantifies everything. The development of recent  years shows that  decisions – including political ones – are increasingly based on  these measurements and quantifications, namely through collected data sets,    be taken.  Concrete results can be  measured, quantified and  bundled as data sets, while the question of opportunities always requires  lengthy  analysis. It should therefore come as no surprise that the increasing depiction of  human action in data sets  politically  and in the media   favours equality of results.  As a result,  measuring  and  presenting pointedly is easier to  understand than lengthy debates about whether there  are equal opportunities for everyone. 

Finally, the fixation on equality of results also avoids the  difficult confrontation with (personal) responsibility.  If the purpose is  clearly formulated and  the  desired result is defined, then personal  failure as  well as  personal success become  secondary, because  the lead lies with the    Collective. Questions about the individual use of  (equal) opportunities and the resulting  consequences become superfluous, because only the result counts.  However, this   also means that where the individual deviates and does not or does   not want  to   achieve the result on his own  , the collective claims to intervene. The debate on the question of  whether school canteens are allowed  to   offer meat shows that  such intervention can be achieved first  through  incentives (keyword “nudging”) and then through bans.  is carried out. 

If  one  steps   into observant  distance, it becomes  clear that  this  political  and increasingly  legal  development    ultimately amounts  to  a   concrete  result: the reversal  of a  long-standing  , in the   West hard-won  order  on the ideals    of the Enlightenment.   The question   of the “who”, the “actor” and his  characteristics    is increasingly becoming    the focus  of discussions.      For this, the discussion   after the action, the discussion  about    the evaluation  of a  certain  action  (or  omission)   is suppressed. This is  hardly  surprising, because the fixation on results favors the    “who” over      the    action, because  characteristics  (age, gender, skin color  , etc.)   are more   objectifiable – and  therefore  more measurable  – than  actions in  which  the subjective  element always   causes difficulties.      But  those who (again) begin to     evaluate people – especially    legally  – according  to  their  characteristics, cannot  avoid categories   (of people)  to  create. The     ever-increasing    number of genders  makes  this clear  and paradoxically emphasizes  (in an  inevitably  discriminatory  way)   the question  of  gender   rather than gender  to    overcome them.  But  then    political  and media  categories  of people (LGBT members, white  old  men, women, blacks, etc.)     The   road  to  Auschwitz has finally  begun. And   here, too, good  intentions  do not give  any  security not   to  end up there, but  rather  increase  the danger.    Anyone who  divides  people into categories –   even  if only  for  a  noble  goal    –   inevitably discriminates.      And so   we run the risk  that  law no   longer primarily evaluates  actions  (or  omissions), but  the qualities    of man. When the   Cyclops, blinded by  Odysseus,   asks  him  screaming  for  his  name,   he answers only  with  “Outis”.  Nobody. And this nobody  is  the foundation of   our  liberal  7Western civilization. The monster   is   not confronted with  the qualities of man, but it is  forced to   be content with   the action    of the individual  and     to deal    with  it.     .  No one  is  everyone, and therefore  irrelevant. The   plot is relevant   and it is not           for nothing    that   Odysseus’ torments begin when  he   reveals himself  in a  fit  of megalomania.          

A   judgment delivered this year by the European Court  of Human Rights (Vavricka and others v. The  Czech Republic), which  supports the obligation for children in the Czech Republic (regardless of the  COVID pandemic), clearly shows  that in order to answer the question  of whether the public interest (compulsory vaccination  for   the  purpose of Prevention   of  the spread of  a disease)  or the individual interest (right to  refuse vaccination)  is preferred, two categories were decisive: vaccinated vs.   Unvaccinated.   One judge rightly    pointed out in his dissenting opinion  that a serious debate on whether  the refusal of  vaccination for non-communicable diseases would be in the  The  same mass  had to be subordinated to   the common good (i.e.  the obligation to vaccinate)  as in the case of infectious diseases.   As a result,  the court decided on the basis of the categories vaccinated/unvaccinated, based on the   desired result, not  on the basis  of   the   chosen means. Think  of the  five minutes mentioned at the beginning: they  are never  enough to evaluate an action,  however clear, the subjective and  objective  To identify the facts of  this act,  to examine the causality of damages or profits.   However, five minutes are sufficient with the help of  technical means to  capture primary and secondary characteristics of a person. The central question  remains: do we want  legal consequences based on  the five minutes? What  may  be sufficient for a  personal decision and based on intuition  must not become the  yardstick of a legal system. 

  The creation  of categories  also has   the consequence that  those   assigned to them  are  understood  as a  collective. For       example,  the debate  on women’s equality  assumes that  all women   have  the same  concerns  and needs.  These  and similar  debates   are   conducted so sharply  that  it is   hardly possible  to    seriously discuss why  there  are  far fewer  women than  men  in      companies. Management positions    .  It  is  simply demanded that   this   must  change in the future.  Apart  from  the   fact that  all people of the  female sex  are  treated  as a  collective  with  identical  wishes  and needs,   it shows    a  worldview that  the clothing    a   management position  in a  company  as  the ultimate  goal  of professional  realization. As a result,   quotas  are  not  only    imposed on companies, but  also a   uniform  and by no means  undisputed  world view  is given to  women as an  ideal. The  debate   on     women’s equality   is a   good  example because  it is,   at its  core, a  political  debate that does not  promote   legal equality.   , i.e. equality   (which already exists), but  the social  equality  of women.    The fact that      legal  means   are required for this ( cf. Art. 734f CO) does not change  this, but  merely  clearly shows that  the law  (equal  rights  for all, which    is already     is politically  instrumentalised in   order to  achieve  equality of results at the  level  of   company (law) (as   many  men  as  women in certain countries).    Management positions). It is not  for nothing that       these  quotas  are  most strongly rejected  by women who already  hold  management positions. The performance principle   as  an inherent  part  of any  debate  about equal opportunities  gives way  here to   a    vehemently  demanded but   reduced  to  the gender  of the cadre  equality of results.  If one also wanted to     be   consistent,   one would have to    ask oneself why   a 50   /50 quota  in management positions  should    not  also apply  in other  professions  – and why  it should be   8  It     is  only  possible for management positions at all, and not  for all levels.              

Finally,  the renunciation of the ideals of the Enlightenment also means that morality now  takes precedence over law.  For enlightenment may no longer  be  en vogue  in a  collectivist world,  but at least it provides the ethical and ideological foundation that  makes a liberal constitutional state possible in the first place.   If one rejects the  ideals of the Enlightenment,  one  would at least  have   to have the courage to  reject  the liberal constitutional state and  to demand a system of values oriented towards characteristics rather than actions.  .    There are plenty of states that  serve as role models, past and  present. Whether the  groups that feel discriminated  against would be  better off  in these  models/states may of course be doubted.  What is uneasy,  however,  is the  fact that the  collectivist  currents in the  West go hand in hand  with the strengthening of collectivist  orders   in China, Russia and the   immediate Periphery of Europe and it  is  only irony of history  that  the collectivist-oriented  morality that permeates our political debates is the Kerkoporta, by totalitarian ideas penetrate the liberal value system of the West.