## Facts

- A German illustrated weekly published a front-page “exclusive interview” with Princess Soraya that was entirely fabricated by a freelance journalist.
- The article disclosed purported details about her private and intimate life, creating a serious intrusion into her personal sphere.
- The publisher ran the story without checking whether the interview had occurred.
- After Soraya protested, the paper later printed a brief statement that the interview had not taken place.
- Soraya sued in civil court seeking damages for violation of the general right of personality.
- The trial court awarded 15,000 DM; the intermediate appellate court affirmed; the highest civil court affirmed, accepting monetary compensation for non-pecuniary harm in grave personality-rights cases.
- The publisher and editor filed a constitutional complaint challenging the civil judgments and the doctrine permitting money damages for immaterial harm.

## Issues

1. Whether allowing monetary compensation for non-material harm in cases of severe violations of the general right of personality is compatible with the constitution.
2. Whether ordinary courts exceeded constitutionally permissible judicial power by recognizing such compensation despite statutory limits on money damages for non-pecuniary injury.
3. Whether the challenged civil judgments violated constitutional protections applicable to the publisher and editor by imposing liability and damages.

## Decision

- The constitutional complaint was rejected.
- The Court held that civil-court doctrine permitting monetary compensation for immaterial harm in severe personality-rights violations is consistent with the constitution.
- The Court held that developing this remedy was a permissible exercise of judicial interpretation and law development, not an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative authority.
- The lower courts’ award of 15,000 DM for the fabricated interview and serious privacy intrusion remained in effect.

## Legal Principles

- The general right of personality, grounded in constitutional guarantees of human dignity and free development of personality, is enforceable within private law and can support tort liability.
- Natural restitution is the primary remedial concept, but where restoration is factually impossible or inadequate, monetary compensation may be allowed to provide effective protection for serious immaterial injury.
- Monetary compensation for immaterial harm in personality-rights cases is exceptional and reserved for grave violations, especially intrusions into intimate life.
- The constitutional requirement that judges are bound by “law and justice” permits methodologically defensible judicial development of legal remedies where statutory law is incomplete or open-textured, so long as it remains anchored in the constitutional order.
- Recognizing limited money damages for severe personality-rights violations does not, by itself, violate separation-of-powers principles.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld the constitutionality of judicially recognized monetary compensation for grave violations of the general right of personality, affirming that courts may develop private-law remedies to ensure effective protection of human dignity and personality where non-monetary measures are insufficient.


Princess Soraya Case (Ger.), 34 BVerfGE 269 (BVerfG 1973)