Sometimes it seems that the EC directives could be a framework for the Canadian anti-discrimination system, too. They open ways to create procedures which are working for a long time in Canada. This does not mean this can be adopted in EC member states because there are too many peculiarities amongst domestic legislation. The problem seems to combine the directives, formed by influence from the North American legislation,130 with the European understanding of law. Especially in Germany, where employees are well protected by the law, the well-balanced system of rights is in danger. This danger does not seem to be banished by the new AGG which adopted many regulations of the directives without giving answers to questions of its implementation. But seeing the practice in other countries could bring thought-provoking impulses for the embodiment and the use of anti-discrimination law.

The news that Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's painting “Berliner Strassenszene“ (Berlin Street Scene) will be up for sale in New York on November 8, 2006 has stirred up the international art scene for the past two months. The sale was announced shortly after the Berlin state senate had returned the painting to the heirs of its original owners, Jewish art collectors Alfred and Tekla Hess. For the past 26 years the piece had been hanging in the Brücke Museum in Berlin and formed a cornerstone of the museum's expressionist collection. Bought, from public funds, in 1980, for a little over $ 1 Million US, the painting is expected to sell this fall for $ 18 Million to $ 25 Million US.

In German constitutional law doctrine, the principal problem which state measures are to be qualified as relevant restrictions to activate the protection by basic rights has not yet been conclusively solved. According to the classic definition, a relevant restriction is given if the infringement of a basic right is final (not a merely unintentional consequence of an activity that aims at fulfilling other purposes) and direct (not only an intended but indirect consequence of the state activity), a legal act with legal (not merely de facto) effects and issued or executed by order and force. Restrictions that do not fall under this definition are problematic. This in particular goes for triangle constellations where the reaction of the addressee of a State measure causes a detriment to a third person's basic rights so that it must be asked whether that restriction can be attributed to the State so that it must justify them, possibly like other direct state measures. A typical example is the case of state warnings against dangerous products; when followed these warnings cause consumers to avoid these products and result in negative effects on the producer's commercial activities, activities that are protected by the freedom of profession or the property right. Connected with the problem of the right classification of such state measures is the question of in what cases restrictions that are found relevant under aspects of basic rights doctrine must correspond with the provision of legality and with other substantive principles in order to be justified. In the case of classical infringements, there is no doubt that a legal authorization is needed and that the principle of proportionality must be observed.