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Originally, from 1949, the Grundgesetz explicitly names the Rechtsstaat only in Art. 28 GG whereby the constitutions of the federal states (Bundesländer) have to conform to the principles of the republican, democratic and social Rechtsstaat. A similar homogeneity rule pointing to the European level was included in Art. 23 I GG in 1992 whereby the German state participates in the development of the European Union that must be obliged to the principles of democracy, the rule of law, the social and federal state and subsidiarity and provide basic human rights protection equal to the Grundgesetz. Since 2000, Art. 16 II GG further allows the extradition of German citizens to a member state of the European Union or to an international court as long as the the rule of law is observed.
The Grundgesetz expresses various ' concept of the rule of law principles in the rules is composed of various rules and principles on the state architecture and the structures of constitutional bodies and the human on basic rights guarantees that comprise requirements for the organisation state organization and procedure of the state. Art. 20 GG names comprises several rule of law principles, however not the German rule of law principle (vgl. German Constitutional Court, decision of December 15, 1970: 24): in par. 2 the principle of the separation of powers and in par. 3 2, and the principle of the obligation of the legislation to the constitutional order, and of the executive and the judiciary to the law and justice ("Gesetz und Recht") . The in par. 3. From here the predominance of the constitution and the law are based here upon and shape the legal order by the a vertical hierarchy of norms. Rechtsstaatlichkeit in the German understanding also encompasses the unlawfulness of retroactive liabilities, the principle proportionality of proportionality, to dissolve means, the individual dissolution of conflicts between legal certainty and justice individually in hardship cases, and the principle of complete and effective judicial review in cases with relevance to individual freedom and property rights (Art. 19 IV GG; see German Constitutional Court ibid.). As a constitutional principle Rechtsstaatlichkeit compasses a multiplicity of principles that are shaped by the Grundgesetz. ). In her book on the German understanding of Rechtsstaatlichkeit Katharina Sobota (1997) counts counted not less than 142 (!). Further particular normative meanings of the principle of the rule of law are not sub-)principles on the basis of the Grundgesetz. Besides these, however, no further normative content of the principle is generally approved.
In order to rationalize political rule, Rechtsstaatlichkeit in the German sense shall frame and shape, bind and limit the state by law. In the beginning of the 19th century, strongly impressed by the reason based philosophy of Immanuel Kant, German scholars formulated a rule of law program to institutionalize liberal claims against absolutist state-conceptions ("gute policey") (see Böckenförde 1969: 144-150; Martini 2009: 308). From a legal practice perspective, Rechtsstaatlichkeit originally encompassed (1) the principle of regulation by formal law ("Gesetzesvorbehalt") for all state action relevant for indiviual freedom and property rights, (2) the principle of the law-based administration ("Gesetzmäßigkeit der Verwaltung") and (3) the principle of judicial control of administrative actions. All three principles set formal requirements without providing specific substantive normative standards, which lead to an understanding of Rechtsstaatlichkeit as a formal provision. Finally around 1900, judicial positivism as the leading paradigm in constitutional theory made for the complete exclusion of substantive and therefore politically contested criteria from the concept of Rechtsstaatlichkeit (see Böckenförde 1969: 155). In radical continuation of this understanding, in 1928 Hans Kelsen in his _"Pure Theory of Law"_ ("Reine Rechtslehre") affirmed the identity of the state and the law. Now, the state was nothing more than Rechtsstaat, the legal state.
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