And when you put it in context with the next sentence “It has to be balanced with other human rights." it's obvious to Germans, because that's "Praktische Konkordanz", which is absolute dogma in German constitutional law.
Could you describe more about the relation of Practical concordance with free speech laws in Germany? I'm not too familiar. And what does free speech conflict with?
Also, she's former Danish PM.
Praktische Konkordanz gets very technical fast, but if you have a limitless basic right (so that the Basic Law doesn't spell out limits itself – freedom of art would be such a limitless basic right), it may only be limited by other basic rights.
If I paint a picture on the wall of your house, a surface reading or literal interpretation of the Basic Law might come to the result that since the exercise art is free, nobody can stop me.
Obviously that would be stupid. :-)
But in order to limit that basic right we need to find another basic right that is being infringed upon by the limitless exercise of the first basic right.
In this case the most obvious one is the right to property.
And then you get a lot of legal analysis why in this specific case limiting the right to free exercise of art should indeed be limited, and where exactly the limit lies.
I mean it's all obvious, right? I doubt that any legal order would actually use strict priorities to basic rights, but that's my point: if you spell out scenarios Schmidt's words aren't improper, nor surprising.
She could mean something broader, more nefarious, but just from reading those words I can only conclude this is totally common interpretation of laws and constitutions.
People on Twitter just choose to interpret those words unfairly, because… Facebook.
* Perjury and lying to the police, FBI etc
* Conspiracy to commit crimes
* Leaking national secrets
* Incitement to riot
* Child pornography possession, distribution etc.
* Revenge porn
* "Shouting fire in a crowded theatre"
* Free speech generally doesn't apply to civil actions (it can to government cases), so you can't use free speech to escape civil liabilities for say copyright infringement or libel. Especially in the states this can be a major restriction as someone richer than you can bankrupt you with lawyers fees even if you are saying true and pertinent things...
The limits of what speech is protected differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The fact that absolutely all speech isn't absolutely protected is something a lot of people struggle with until you get into the details...