the rule of law as a criterion for europe 289 concept of the Rechtsstaat meant that the actions of the state were limited, and that a citizen had a free sphere defined by law, but the statewas not – as Mohl had meant – defined by liberty as a purpose. Rather, ‘this is the concept of the Rechtsstaat, not that the state only takes care of the legal order without administrative purposes or only protects the rights of the individuals; it in no way means the purpose and content of the state, but only the way and character by which purpose and content are realized.’6 In the context of the first half of the nineteenth century, Stahl was among the more conservative scholars and Mohl among the more liberal ones. Stahl combined the Rechtsstaat with the ‘monarchical principle’ – that the entire power of the state was concentrated to the sovereign, which had limited its own powers through constitutional laws, representation of the people, and so on.7 When Letto-Vanamo wrote about the Rechtsstaat, she discussed both the liberty to be protected and the institutional arrangements needed to uphold the protection of that liberty. In brief, the aspects of the Rechtsstaat she discussed were individual rights and freedoms; judicial independence; the judicial review of legislation; separation of powers; the need for a legislative basis for administrative acts against citizens; equality before the law; democratic representation of the people; and an active civil society. It is clear this definition of theRechtsstaat is inspired by the tradition of thought stemming fromMohl’s Rechtsstaat in a material and not only formal sense, aimed at protecting the liberty of the citizen. 6 Friedrich Julius Stahl, Die Philosophie des Rechts. Rechts- und Staatslehre auf der Grundlage christlicher Weltanschauung (2nd edn, Heidelberg: Akademische Buchhandlung J. C. B. Mohr, 1846), ii. 106: ‘Dieß ist der Begriff des Rechtsstaats, nicht etwa, daß der Staat bloß die Rechtsordnung handhabe ohne administrative Zwecke, oder vollends bloß die Rechte der Einzelnen schütze, er bedeutet überhaupt nicht Ziel und Inhalt des Staates, sondern nur Art und Charakter, dieselben zu verwirklichen.’ 7 Michael Stolleis,Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, ii: 1800–1914(Munich: Beck, 1992), 102–105, 152–3, 172–6; Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Der deutsche Typ der konstitutionellen Monarchie im 19. Jahrhundert’ in id., Staat, Freiheit: Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie, Staatstheorie und Verfassungsgeschichte (Frankfurt amMain: Suhrkamp, 1991), 273– 305.
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