This conflict came to a head over the claim from members of the Nazi-era judiciary, civil service and academic professorships for a right to reinstatement into their former jobs in the new Federal Republic. Under Article 131 of the Basic Law, the re-employment of these public servants, or otherwise their entitlement to severance payments or pensions, had been specified to be subject to federal law; but when such a law was enacted in 1951, providing limited redress in employment and partial back-payment of pension entitlements, it was challenged by many former public servants; whose cases were strongly supported by the Federal Court of Justice. The substance of the FCJ support for these cases rested on the proposition that the employment rights of public officials had been protected from political interference as a fundamental principle of the German state, albeit that this principle had been grossly violated in the Nazi period; and hence since the German state, now freed from Nazism, had continued to exist after 1945, so too had the employment of its public officials - notwithstanding the actions of the Occupying Powers in temporarily removing them.