German Public Administration: Weberian Despite "Modernization"

The German administrative system is part of a republican polity whose characteristics are afederal division of powers between national and 16 Land (state) governments, a parliamentarysystem of government and the concept of Rechtsstaat (Article 20 of the Basic Law); the latterimplies that all executive power and administration are bound by law, in particular when interferingwith individual basic rights, that all public power is subject to judicial control with citizenshaving access to the system of constitutional courts (federal and Land) and specialadministrative courts of justice. Furthermore, a professional civil service is constitutionallyguaranteed as an institution (Article 33, especially Section 5).