On 31 December 2022, Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI, died. The relationship between faith and reason is central in his work. Less well known is his personalistic concept of law. According to Ratzinger, the person is fundamentally a relational and reasonable being because he is created in the image of God who is relational and reasonable. Ratzinger distinguishes between technical and moral reason. According to Ratzinger, reason needs faith to purify it from pathologies of reason. Faith instead needs reason to purge it from pathologies of faith. From this interaction between faith and reason, Ratzinger develops a personalistic concept of law in which the human person with his freedom and dignity has a central place.

This article criticizes the regulation of a party ban (Art. 86) as contained in a bill for a new Political Parties Act submitted for consultation before Christmas 2022. The writer argues that this regulation has many flaws. To this end, he draws inspiration from the work of legal philosopher Hans Kelsen. He argues that a party ban can only be justified in highly exceptional cases in a democracy, namely in those cases where the core of democracy is endangered. That core he sees in electing a government and dismissing it (Art. 4 Constitution, Art. 42(2) Constitution). That ‘core’ of democracy is threatened by fascism, communism, and Islamism. Thereby, Islamism is the most acute threat to democracy.

How to define the concept of constitutional democracy? This question has gained more relevance since constitutional democracy is used in Dutch legislation as a touchstone, view for example the obligations on citizenship education. In this article it is argued that openness is of crucial importance when defining or interpreting constitutional democracy, because of the wide variety of approaches of the basic values and interpretation of the concept. Specifically (so it is argued) it is important not to take a liberalism of individual autonomy to be the defining basic value of constitutional democracy.

The Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (SGP), founded in 1918, initially rejected the right to religious freedom, mainly on theological grounds. According to the Bible, the government should protect true religion; idolatry is not allowed in the public domain. At the same time, the SGP defended freedom of conscience. This stance was perceived as internally contradictory, especially from the 1980s onwards. In parliament the SGP often stood up for faith-based organisations and for persecuted Christians worldwide, invoking the right to religious freedom. These practises and other developments explain why the SGP today values the fundamental right to religious freedom much more positively, although it still rejects truth relativism.

This article discusses the development of Dutch integration policies since 2010. It argues that integration policy in this period primarily evolved in terms of ‘civic integration’ (inburgering). The article traces the way immigrant integration and security concerns impact on the governance of religion in three areas: religious institutions & organizations; civic integration, non-discrimination and social cohesion; and security.