The Citation Requirement of Article 80 (1) Sentence 3 GG
PhD student: Celine Hofer-Dinc, Mag. iur.
The citation requirement of Article 80 (1) sentence 3 of the Basic Law requires the legal basis to be stated in ordinances issued on the basis of authorizations under Article 80 (1) sentence 1 of the Basic Law. According to the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court, compliance with this formal requirement, which at first sight sounds brittle, is a prerequisite for effectiveness, so that a violation of the citation requirement leads to the invalidity of the ordinance in question. The fact that the standard can be highly relevant in practice was recently demonstrated in the context of the planned reform of the Road Traffic Act of 2020, which was subject to a lot of media attention. The "formal error" cited as the reason proved to be a violation of the citation requirement.
With regard to the citation requirement, various questions arise from a jurisprudential perspective. In particular, these concern the functions and the scope of the requirement as well as the modalities of the citation. The dissertation will shed light on the historical and constitutional foundations of the norm, focusing in particular on the reservation of the law. The formal requirement will be examined in the overall context of the enactment of the law under Article 80 of the Basic Law. Therefore, the requirement of the legal basis according to sentence 1 as well as the definiteness of the content, purpose and extent of the legal basis according to sentence 2 are also to be examined, insofar as these can be of significance for the interpretation of the citation requirement.