Consultations by local councils are generally public - this is required by the basic democratic order.
Churches do not always find it easy to do this.
In Holzkirchen, a topic was now being discussed behind closed doors - "in order to prevent unnecessary discussions among the population".
Holzkirchen
- On the one hand there are regulations such as stricter data protection, on the other hand the principle of publicity as a cornerstone of democracy: in practice, this area of tension can become a fine line for municipalities. Holzkirchen has now stepped aside, as can be seen from the documents for the public meeting of the municipal council on Tuesday. In the matter of agenda item (TOP) 15 it was read: "The treatment of the amendment to the statutes takes place in the non-public part in order to avoid unnecessary discussions in the population."
In the main committee, the matter had been discussed in advance, says Mayor Christoph Schmid (CSU) when asked.
He couldn't say much more about it, “I'm walking on thin ice”.
The wording was accidentally copied into the documents.
Why a harmless formality should be discussed behind closed doors at all instead of in public, the town hall chief leaves open and defends himself: "I have a control body, that is, the local council." Although the incumbent mayor is always responsible for the agenda, he refers to the details Schmid, however, to the regulatory office.
Local authority: “Unnecessary discussions” are no reason to exclude the public
In any case, it is not possible to exclude the public from deliberations without further ado, explains the municipal supervisory authority at the district office at our newspaper's request.
This can be possible and even necessary - namely if the public interest or justified claims of individuals are contrary, as stated in Paragraph 52 of the Bavarian municipal code.
But: "The mere interest in preventing unnecessary discussions in the population is not covered by either of the two exclusions and therefore cannot justify a deviation from the principle of publicity," clarifies the district office.
Lack of factual reason and only non-public advice: decision invalid
"If the public is excluded from the meeting without an objective justification, this leads to the invalidity of the relevant constitutional resolution as well as the ineffectiveness of a statute that has been issued nonetheless," said the District Office. “Nothing else applies if the resolution of the articles of association was passed in a public meeting, but the relevant factual discussion only took place in a previous non-public meeting. However, this can be avoided here by disclosing the essential content and results of the non-public treatment in the public meeting. "
The head of the regulatory office, who wrote the formulation for the main committee meeting, will also be aware of this in the future: “The sentence reads stupid of course,” he now admits.
The problem only became clear to him after a consultation with the local supervisory authority: "It is possible that there will no longer be a discussion in the local council because the topic has already been discussed in the committee - then something will be withheld from the public." In particular, the decision-making process.
All those involved in the meeting accepted the reasoning
In fact, this is not the case with the amendment to the statutes because there was simply no discussion.
The "Statute on special use of public traffic areas" has to be corrected because in the course of the introduction of parking fees at the train station, the installation of mute newspaper servants and information boards was inadvertently put in the permit-free and therefore free use, for which the municipality actually has one based on the fee schedule Obolus required.
The main committee of the municipal council “accepted” both the topic and the non-public without discussion, explains the head of the public order office.
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