  Schmitt’s ambiguous position towards the Weimar system was equally on display in his interpretation of the dictatorial powers of the president of the Weimar Republic under art. 48 of the Weimar constitution (Dyzenhaus 1997, 70–85; Vinx 2016). By partially assimilating the president to a sovereign dictator, Schmitt defended an unusually extensive interpretation of the president’s authority that in effect subjected all constitutional rights to the discretionary interference of the executive headed by the president (See DP). Liberal rights were to be respected, as the German people had chosen to create a liberal constitution, but only on the condition that public order and security had been secured. For Schmitt, individual freedoms, even where constitutionally guaranteed, are to be regarded as concessions of the state to the individual since they are subject, in the last instance, to suspension through a sovereign decision on the exception (CT 80–1, 156–8, 235–52). Schmitt, moreover, vehemently fought against the idea that the protection of the constitution ought to be assigned to a constitutional court. A constitutional court, Schmitt argued, would either have to limit itself to uncontroversial cases in which constitutional law provides determinate guidance or take upon itself the responsibility to determine the political identity of the people.  But for a court to assume that responsibility would, in Schmitt’s view, have amounted to an illegitimate usurpation of the constituent power of the people, as much as an attempt to bring about fundamental constitutional change through formal constitutional amendment (HV 12–48; TV 26–41).