3.—FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF COMMUNITIES.
The Constituent Assembly did not limit itself to the establishment of a list of rights and duties of the individual. The social conceptions by which it was dominated led it to proclaim, after the rights and duties of the individuals, the rights and duties of certain groups and communities that seemed to it to play a particularly important rôle in society—the family, associations, municipalities, civil service.
I.—The family.—For the first time the family, the natural foundation of all ordered national life, finds itself mentioned in the Declaration of Rights of a modern state. The Constitution of Weimar formulates the general principles which should dominate legislation relating to marriage, to the education and the protection of children and to the duties of education devolved upon parents.
[Article 119] places marriage under the special protection of the Constitution. Marriage, which forms the basis of family life and on which depends the increase of the population of the nation, is based on the equal rights of both sexes. Marriage and the family are recognized as the basis on which social life reposes and as the primary source from which develop German customs and culture. In consequence [Article 119] enunciates a legislative course of considerable social and political importance. It prescribes the care of the purity, the health and the social advancement of the family as a duty of the state and of the municipalities. Families with numerous children have a claim to equalizing assistance. Motherhood has the right to the protection and care of the State.
Proposals were made, during the discussion of the draft of the Constitution, to lighten the lot of illegitimate children. They were aimed to assimilate, from the point of view of family rights, illegitimate and legitimate children. The majority of the National Assembly decided, because of the difficulties of regulating in a constitutional text questions of private rights, to leave this matter to legislation and to later development. The Assembly limited itself to forming guiding principles only. Legislation must assure to illegitimate children the same conditions for physical, moral and social development that legitimate children have. But convinced of the need of legislative reform on this matter, the Assembly passed a resolution that there should be taken, as soon as possible and by legislative means, a new ordering of the legal and social status of illegitimate children.
Concerning education, [Article 120] declares only that parents have the right and the duty to educate their children; “The physical, mental, and moral education of their offspring is the highest duty and natural right of parents.” But the State must not leave it entirely to parents and intervenes as an organ of surveillance. The political community watches over the execution by the parents of these duties imposed upon them.
In addition the State assumes as an obligation in a general way the protection of youth; the care of children and youth comes under the legislative authority of the Reich. As a guide for the accomplishment of this obligation, [Article 122] specifies that youth shall be protected against exploitation as well as against physical and mental neglect.
II.—Association.—The right of assembly and association was already regulated by the law of April 19, 1908; in addition to this the Civil Code contained some provisions on the acquisition of civic rights. The Constitution contents itself with taking as its own the principles that inspired these laws, but it makes certain changes in the existing laws.
As to the liberty of assemblage, [Article 123] holds to rules previously adopted, “All Germans have the right of meeting peaceably and unarmed without notice or special permission.” The obligation that public meetings be reported in advance to the authorities, which formerly existed, is abolished. Furthermore, while the law of 1908 demanded that public meetings in the open air and manifestations on public ways and squares receive in advance authorization by the police—authorization which must be applied for at least twenty-four hours in advance—the Constitution, on the other hand, declares that in theory these meetings are free and do not need to be authorized. It adds, however, that in the interest of security and public order, liberty of assembly may be limited by law, this limitation consisting furthermore not in the need of authorization, but only in the obligation to give the police notice in advance.