Law and jurisprudence are always also political and personal: interwoven with power, ideologies and interests, never entirely free from subjective convictions and attitudes.

It is an important regulatory idea that there is only one right decision when interpreting the law, but often enough there is a subjective residue that cannot be completely resolved with arguments.

That is why it is also important who administers the law and who interprets the law: the thing cannot be completely separated from the person here.

Against this background, it is worrying that lawyers are quite strongly represented among the critics and opponents of the liberal order of the Basic Law, as they can be found in right-wing populist milieus: Ironically, members of the professional group who, not only, but in a special way, defend Freedom, equality and democracy is called for, are often at odds with these principles.

Recently, the legislature has reacted: In law studies, the legal material, according to the Judges' Act, should be taught "also in dealing with the injustice of the National Socialists and the injustice of the SED dictatorship".

The fact that future lawyers should have knowledge of this is not to be criticized at all, but one feels in the explanatory memorandum that

The traumatic example Theodor Maunz

Another question that arises from the context of "professional" application of the law guided by the right attitude is for jurisprudence: Which political views are actually still acceptable for those who are involved in the interpretation and further development of the law in specialist legal literature Contribute right?

In constitutional law in particular, with its open and value-dependent regulations, people would not like it to be interpreted by authors who ultimately are unfamiliar with its principles.

German constitutional law has had a traumatic experience with Theodor Maunz: editor and namesake of the best-known commentary on the Basic Law, holder of an important chair and state minister,

Maunz was a clear case, the publisher then deleted his name.

But other cases are more complicated.

For some time now, some authors from the same publishing house have felt uneasy because Hans-Georg Maaßen is involved in the legal commentaries and handbooks that appear there.

Even if one assumes that there is nothing technically wrong with Maaßen's contributions, that they are within the bounds of what is legally and scientifically justifiable, this author has encountered a number of reservations due to his political statements and activities in recent years.

Anyone who, as a CDU member, expresses sympathy for cooperation with a party that is being observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, calls for a "Covid vaccination ban" and invokes corona deniers who, with the best will in the world, can no longer be taken seriously,