[Pandemic and fundamental freedoms, exercise administrative discretion in the name of rights] [Pandemia e libertà fondamentali, o dell’esercizio della discrezionalità amministrativa nel nome dei diritti]

With the judgment of 15 April 2020, 1 BvR 828/20, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the municipal administration of the town of Giessen must re-evaluate the request of authorization to hold a demonstration in a public place, presented by a German citizen and already rejected by the same administration, in light of the considerations on the exercise of administrative discretion carried out by the Court itself. According to the Constitutional Judge, in cases such as this, administrative discretion must in fact be exercised primarily in order to protect rights which, otherwise, an administrative provision could compress to the point of making it impossible to exercise.