University of North Carolina School of Law Carolina Law Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2004 Constitutional Drift: Toward the End of Federal Shop-Closing (Ladenschluss) Regulation Craig T. Smith University of North Carolina School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/faculty_publications Part of the Law Commons Publication: German Law Journal This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. PUBLIC LAW Constitutional Drift: Toward the End of Federal Shop- Closing (Ladenschluss) Regulation By Craig T. Smith* A. Introduction Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court held on June 9, 2004, that the weekend and holiday closing requirements of the federal Shop-Closing Act (Ladenschlussgesetz) are compatible with the Basic Law.1 At the same time, however, the Court’s deci- sion in this Weekend Shop-Closing Case situated the Act’s Saturday closing require- ment – and by implication its weekday closing requirements too – perilously close to the brink of unconstitutionality. The Court’s First Senate accomplished this through three distinct rulings. First, it unanimously upheld the Sunday and holiday shop-closing requirements. Second, the First Senate – likewise unanimously – clarified that, under a 1994 amendment to the Basic Law, power to regulate retail shop-opening hours shifted from the federal government to the Länder. Finally, an evenly divided First Senate upheld the Act’s Saturday closing requirement, but only by virtue of the deadlock.