Gesetzgebung in eigener Sache

Heinrich Lang studies the grounds for and the boundaries of legislation based on self-interest. It is the author's main contention that a government which is bound by the constitution is dependent on a distance between lawmakers and the subject of the law in order for it to be legitimate, and that this distance is not kept when decisions are made on one's own behalf. Using the present law for the remuneration of members of parliament as an example, the author begins by showing the weakness in those self-beneficial decision-making structures. In the section dealing with legal theory, he demonstrates that the structural deficits of decisions made on one's own behalf in a parliamentary democracy are not the result of a self-service mentality on the part of the members of parliament but rather the result of a self-service constellation. The author also shows how it is possible to re-establish the distance in the constitutional state and to keep the political parties financing law from becoming a subject of dispute.