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A sign “State Constitutional Court” stands in front of the court building.
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Organizing into parliamentary groups makes the work of representatives in local parliaments easier.
However, the country is allowed to specify a minimum size.
This does not violate the state constitution.
Schleswig - The state parliamentary groups of the FDP and SSW have failed with their constitutional complaint against increasing the minimum group size in large local parliaments.
The new regulation, which has been in force since June 2023, is compatible with the state constitution, as the state constitutional court decided on Friday in Schleswig.
Political groups in municipal and city councils or district councils with 31 or more members must now have at least three representatives.
Previously, two elected representatives were sufficient to form a parliamentary group.
(LVerfG 4/23)
The plaintiffs saw the tightening as an unreasonable disadvantage to their ability to participate in politics, for example in committees.
The President of the State Constitutional Court, Christoph Brüning, said that some of the applications were inadmissible.
“To the extent that they are permissible, they are unfounded.”
The increase does not violate the principle of democracy and the resulting principle of equal participation rights for local representatives, nor does it violate the guarantee of local self-government.
The legal status of a member of parliament is not affected by whether he is non-attached or a member of a parliamentary group, said Brüning.
A smaller number of parliamentary groups could help reduce the time burden on MPs.
Brüning pointed out that there is no percentage threshold for local elections in Schleswig-Holstein.
The constitutional protection of the national minority, to which the SSW referred in the application for regulatory review, also does not apply according to the court's decision.
The SSW parliamentary group leader Lars Harms expressed disappointment after the verdict was announced.
“I would have hoped more for the local politicians that they would be able to join together and form a parliamentary group.” Now there is legal clarity, said Harms.
“And of course we have to accept that.”
FDP state parliament member Bernd Buchholz also called the verdict disappointing.
“But it is the state constitutional court and that creates legal clarity.
We continue to have a different political opinion.” He has to respect it when the Constitutional Court says that the limits of the constitution are not affected here.
“The justification that was just presented orally contains some passages that I cannot immediately understand.” The rights of non-attached members of a local council are clearly different from those of faction members.
The second part of the judgment deals with changes in citizens' petitions and referendums, including the increase and standardization of quorums.
Here too the applicants failed.
It is crucial that the Basic Law and the state constitution do not prescribe citizens' petitions and referendums at the local level, said Brüning.
There is therefore no right to elements of direct democracy at the local level.
The legislature therefore has a lot of leeway.
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CDU parliamentary group leader Tobias Koch said he was pleased that there was now clarity.
With the changes, the coalition ensured that local politics, which are mainly voluntary, were more able to act.
The local political spokeswoman for the Green Party, Bina Braun, emphasized that no negative effects of the new regulation had been reported to her, quite the opposite.
However, criticism came from the chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group, Serpil Midyatli.
The state constitutional court found that the change in local law regarding parliamentary group sizes and quorums for citizens' initiatives was legal.
But: “The Black-Green Party really can’t rest on their laurels because it was still the wrong approach to strengthening democratic participation.” dpa