Existenzsicherung im Öffentlichen Recht

Walter Georg Leisner describes the current problems surrounding the safeguarding of human existence. He examines the scope of protection of human dignity from the perspective of central fundamental rights such as the right to life or the freedom to choose an occupation. It is the government tax authorities in particular who have been bound by the Federal Constitutional Court to respect the subsistence level. The safeguarding of existence is provided for mainly in public law and in the basic constitutional principles. The author studies the establishment of the substinence level, the basis of livelihood and assistance in statutory law, in social and fiscal law, in the law concerning aliens and public subsidies as well as in civil law on protected earnings rates and oppressive contracts. He develops a standard system of dogmatics for safeguarding the elementary needs of life.