Christoph Gusy is known in legal scholarship as a thinker who is as astute as he is argumentative. His numerous and thematically diverse writings are impressive not only for their great analytical clarity and intellectual rigor, but also for their clarity and stylistic elegance. The contributions in this Freundesgabe marking Gusy's 70th birthday reflect and pay tribute to his oeuvre, which is largely concerned with the conditions for the success, self-assertion and self-limitation of democracy. Following these guiding questions, the contributions primarily address "life themes" of the jubilarian: the construction, destruction and defensibility of democracy, information as the basis of democracy, police and intelligence services in democracy,