Abstrakt
European as well as American legal scholarship in the 20th century described several doctrines and approaches of how to solve conflicts of fundamental rights and public goods. None of them, however, have received such attention worldwide, both in academia and in judicial practice, as the principle of proportionality.
The essence of the original meaning of the principle of proportionality is based on the constitutional requirement to tailor regulatory means to envisaged ends. The aim of this chapter is, however, neither a description of the 'triumph of proportionality' in Post-War jurisprudence nor a structural description and listing problems concerning the application of this principle.
Beyond these issues there lie more fundamental questions of cultural roots and philosophical foundations of proportionality. The author will elaborate on several studies on this topic and try to illustrate how this principle was adopted in the Central and Eastern Europe countries after their democratic transition.