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In reply to the discussion: France arrests 54 in hate speech crackdown [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)state action, action by our government. In Germany, this article from 1989 explains that the German Basic Law which is like our Constitution to some extent influences decisions about private actions and private agreements.
When there is no state action in American law, the United States Constitution ordinarily has no effect at all. Under American doctrine, therefore, if there is state action constitutional rights theoretically apply with full vigor; if there is no state action, there are no constitutional rights. [[] Under the German Basic Law, however, the fact that a certain dispute of private law lies beyond where the state action line would be drawn under the United States Constitution has no particular meaning. The rules of private law are still "influenced" by the basic rights of the constitution. Thus the German constitution continues to have an impact in cases in which no state action would be found under American law.
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2740&context=mlr
The article is long but interesting.
Of course, the article was written in 1989, so many new decisions have been issued by the German courts and some of the emphasis in the law may have shifted or even changed.