Schefold is being honored for his outstanding services and his multifaceted commitment. For Bovenschulte, it was an award ceremony in a particularly intimate setting: Schefold was not only his law teacher, but also his doctoral supervisor. "The joy is enormous, even though I had nothing to do with the decision - that lay solely with the Federal President," the Bremen mayor said happily.
Schefold taught at the University of Bremen from 1980 until his retirement in 2001. Before that, after study stays in Basel, Berlin, and Rome, he taught within the Faculty of Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. In addition, he has held visiting professorships in Rome and Paris, among other places. His fields of specialization are constitutional law, administrative and municipal law, constitutional history, and Italian law.
Outstanding Contribution to Democratic Constitutional Law
"His body of writings and publications makes an outstanding contribution to the democratic constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany," the Office of the Federal President states in its reasoning.
In the university sector, Schefold advocated the integration of progressive elements from the Bremen teaching system into the new system during the transition from the progressive "one-tiered legal education" operated at the University of Bremen until 1982 to the "two-tiered" path common throughout Germany. In terms of content, he was also always in close academic contact with Bremen constitutional law and a member of quite a few legal societies.
"Dian Schefold Is an Outstanding Legal Scholar"
"Dian Schefold is an outstanding legal scholar," Mayor Bovenschulte said at the award ceremony. "But that alone is not enough. To receive this award, you have to have worked for the common good for a very long time and to an extent that is above ordinary." In Schefold's case, he said, that means services to the preservation of democracy, European integration and understanding, and the sovereignty of the state of Bremen. As a Swiss, Schefold was practically born with a sympathy for the city-state - he has lived and worked in Basel, Berlin and Bremen, and finally, with a great deal of personal commitment and tenacity, he ensured that many good approaches from the former one-tier legal education were carried over into the two-tier legal education that was then introduced."
Justice Senator Dr. Claudia Schilling also had words of praise for the university professor: "Professor Schefold not only deserves this award - he has literally earned it: as an unwavering European, as an unwavering fighter for the independence of our federal state, and above all as a professor of public law at the University of Bremen. Research and teaching were never a contradiction for him there, but rather equally significant parts of his work, which definitely extended into the private sphere."
