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Case Note - Judgment of the Landgericht Frankfurt (Oder) (Regional Court) of 22 June 2010: Hotelier's Right to Ban Persons from Hotel Premises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Jule Mulder  and
Andrea Gideon

Extract

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On 22 June 2010, the Landgericht Frankfurt (Oder) (Regional Court) ruled on whether a hotel was entitled to deny a member of a nationalist party entrance to its establishment because of the individual's political beliefs or whether such discriminatory conduct constituted an illegal violation of the personality right of that person which would constitute a tort under § 823 of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code, “BGB”). In making its decision, the Court balanced a property owner's freedom of autonomy, specifically the owner's right to ban a customer from his or her establishment, against the customer's personal rights. Furthermore, the Court considered whether a hotel owner's decision to ban a customer based on his or her political beliefs violated the Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (General Equal Treatment Law, “AGG”). Considering the fundamental question of balancing competing interests, of the personal right of the customer and the right of the property owner, and the national public debate concerning the right of members of nationalistic parties to be treated equally, the case goes beyond the interests of the parties involved and is of general importance.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 10 , October 2010 , pp. 1147 - 1160
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 See Landgericht Frankfurt [Oder] [Regional Court], Reference No. 12 0 17/10, 22 June 2010.Google Scholar

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