Human Rights Law Review 13:2 ß The Author [2013]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com doi:10.1093/hrlr/ngt013 Advance Access publication 3 June 2013 ....................................................................... Interpreting the Right to a Dignified Minimum Existence: A New Era in German Socio-Economic Rights Jurisprudence? Inga T.Winkler* and Claudia Mahler** Keywords: socio-economic rights ^ justiciability ^ human right to a dignified minimum existence ^ right to social security ^ asylum seekers benefits ^ German Constitutional Court 1. Introduction Many countries are well known for their progressive case law on economic, social and cultural rights. German courts would not usually be among the first to name, 1 but the decisions of the German Constitutional Court in two *Legal Advisor, German Institute for Human Rights, Berlin (winkler@institut-fuer- menschenrechte.de). **Senior Researcher, German Institute for Human Rights, Berlin (mahler@institut-fuer- menschenrechte.de). This article reflects the authors’ personal opinion and not necessarily that of the German Institute for Human Rights. They would like to thank Juana Sotomayor for providing valuable feedback on an earlier draft, as well as Markus Lackermair for his help- ful research assistance. 1 None of the compilations of socio-economic rights jurisprudence includes an entry on Germany, see Langford, Social Rights Jurisprudence: Emerging Trends in International and Comparative Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Gauri, Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the DevelopingWorld (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Coomans, Justiciability of Economic and Social Rights: Experiences from Domestic Systems (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2006). Similarly, the only German entry in ESCR-Net’s case law database is on the Asylum Seekers Benefits case, see: http://www.escr-net.org/caselaw [last accessed 11 February 2013]. ........................................................................... Human Rights Law Review 13:2(2013), 388^401 by guest on January 12, 2014 http://hrlr.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from