Action referendum

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The action referendum - referendum for referendum in Bavaria municipalities and districts was established in 1981 association based in Nuremberg , which for the introduction of the citizens' decision in Bavaria began. In 1993, the association merged with the Bonn “IDEE (Initiative Democracy Developing)” to form the organization More Democracy in Bavaria . In 1995, the referendum was introduced through a referendum and referendum .

founding

The referendum campaign was founded on February 7th, 1981 in the YMCA home on Landwehrstrasse in Munich . This association was preceded by the Erlangen Citizens' Committee, Referendum for Citizenship Decision , which was formed in March 1980 at the instigation of the Erlangen university professor Theodor Ebert , at that time also city councilor of the Erlangen Green List. According to the minutes of the founding meeting, 39 people were involved in the founding of the referendum campaign. A statute was adopted in which the name and seat of the association ( Nuremberg ) were determined.

For the purpose of the association, the statutes determine:

"1) The purpose of the association is to enforce the decision- making rights of the citizens of Bavaria in individual matters in their communities and districts and to anchor the citizens' decision in the municipal and district regulations. The association sets down its ideas about the referendum in a bill .

2) To achieve the purpose of the association, a referendum according to Art. 71 of the Constitution of the Free State of Bavaria is prepared and, if necessary, initiated on the basis of this draft law .

3) To achieve its purpose, the association supports the establishment and work of local and regional associations in the Free State of Bavaria, which publicize and promote the association's concerns. He tries to get support for the purpose of the association through associations across Bavaria. "

In addition to the founding resolution, the most important decision of the founding assembly of February 7, 1981 was to provide for the referendum also at the district level: in the districts, many rights of the districts belonging to municipalities - rights that lie with the city council in the independent cities - have been transferred to the district council. That is why the association was given the name Aktion Bürgerentscheid - referendum for citizens' decision in Bavaria's municipalities and districts .

In addition to the five-person board of directors, the articles of association provided for an advisory board, which should consist of representatives of supporting associations and public figures. The general assembly, as the highest body of the association, was responsible for all important decisions, in particular on the wording of the draft law. The membership fee was set at 1 DM per month.

On February 7, 1981, Theodor Ebert (Erlangen), Heinz Hintermeier (Weißenburg) and Walter Nelhiebel (Munich) were elected to the board as equal chairmen, as secretary Heinz Quitsch (Ahorn) and treasurer Wolfgang Lederer (Erlenbach). The public was informed about the establishment by a press release.

During the discussion of the draft law, the question of the quorum in the referendum soon came to the fore. After several months of intensive discussion, there was a clear majority in both the membership and the supporting associations in favor of renouncing a quorum in the actual vote, the referendum. Their result should therefore not only become legally valid if a certain percentage of those entitled to vote answers the question in the affirmative (or in the negative). This “Swiss solution”, as it was already envisaged in the draft bills of the CSU / SPD cabinet Ehard and the SPD deputy Hoegner, was laid down at the general meetings of October 23, 1981 and January 15, 1982. This view was later confirmed by an expert opinion by constitutional lawyer Christian Pestalozza , professor at the Free University of Berlin, on April 8, 1982.

In preparation for the referendum, the board sought support from well-known associations at the same time: Even before the foundation of the association, the Bavarian State Association of the Greens decided to support the initiative for the introduction of the referendum at the state assembly on June 1, 1980.

Support from other organizations

Church youth organizations (Catholic rural youth, Catholic young community , Protestant rural youth ) and other youth organizations (Association of Scouts and Boy Scouts, the Falcons, the Young Democrats, the liberal university association) were won relatively early on . Resolutions of support from larger associations and parties came about in the following months: for example, from the Naturfreunde LV Bayern at their state committee meeting on April 12, 1981, from the Education and Science Union (GEW) (state representative assembly) on May 24, 1981, from the DGB Bavaria ( Regional conference) on January 15, 1982, from the Federation of Nature Conservation Bavaria (delegates' assembly) on April 24, 1982, from the Bavaria regional association of the FDP on 8/9. May 1982.

At the general assembly on October 23, 1981 in Nuremberg, the bill was passed without a quorum in the actual decision. In addition, it was decided to anchor citizens' petitions and referendums in Bavaria's constitution. Since this can only be changed by the people in Bavaria, it was ensured that the referendum could not be abolished by parliament through simple legislation.

In the following years, signatures were collected for the petition for a referendum. The required 25,000 signatures by 1987 were not achieved, however. In addition, the following provision was inserted in Section 72 (3) of the Bavarian State Electoral Code with sentence 3 in 1989: “(3) 1 Confirmation of the municipality of the place of residence, in the case of several apartments of the municipality of the main residence, must prove that the signatories of Application for admission are entitled to vote. 2 The confirmation is given free of charge on the signature sheet. The confirmation must not be older than two years when the application for approval is submitted. ”(Bayer. Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt 14/1989 p. 270) This provision was subsequently removed from the LWO and is not included in the currently valid version ! The signatures of the referendum campaign that had been collected so far were practically worthless.

New attempt

The bill of the action citizens 'decision was then introduced into the negotiations that came about when the Bonn "IDEE (Initiative Democracy Developing)" moved from Bonn to Munich with the intention of carrying out a referendum to introduce the citizens' decision in Bavaria. This group was about the Omnibus for direct democracy, which toured Bavaria in April 1988 and for which the action public decision had advertised in circular no.7 of February 1988 (the bus was also in Nuremberg between April 7th and 9th) , a first contact has been made.

At a working meeting on October 25, 1992 in Nuremberg, the course was set for further cooperation between Aktion Bürgerentscheid and IDEE. On April 3, 1993, a new initiative under the name Mehr Demokratie in Bayern was founded to carry out a referendum, to which Aktion Bürgerentscheid and IDEE have now merged. Two board members of Aktion Bürgerentscheid, Theodor Ebert and Rolf-Dieter Kuhn, as well as Thomas Mayer and Brigitte Krenkers from IDEE worked on the board of this new initiative. Lienhard Barz was elected as a further member of the board of directors. Mayer and Barz were close to anthroposophy. The draft law of this initiative contains the essential points of the law drafted by Aktion Bürgerentscheid: Anchoring in the Bavarian constitution, citizens' decision also for the districts, no quorum in the decision. The last two points were of strategic importance for the success of the referendum: By extending the referendum to the districts, support was also secured in the flat countryside, in the districts; And the waiver of a quorum in the decision was essential for the support in large cities such as Munich, Nuremberg or Augsburg, since a quorum is often difficult to achieve in large cities. However, after the bill was passed in a referendum, the majority of the state parliament reintroduced a quorum a few years later, albeit with only a 10% hurdle.

In the period that followed, the newly founded association Mehr Demokratie in Bayern sought support from Bavarian associations, whereby the preparatory work carried out by the referendum campaign proved to be helpful. Practically all associations that had already supported the referendum campaign and its draft law now also supported the new initiative. The support from church youth associations also proved to be very helpful. In addition to the supporters, the Bavarian SPD, which was represented on the board by member of the state parliament, Klaus Hahnzog . Hahnzog is a former Bavarian constitutional judge, was Munich's mayor and legal policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament .

Two circumstances were particularly helpful in mobilizing the collection of the 25,000 signatures required for the petition for a referendum, firstly the use of the bus designed by Joseph Beuys for direct democracy in Germany, and secondly the fact that the new association in Munich had a had his own office, in which Thomas Mayer and a few hard-working helpers who were doing an internship at IDEE were able to work almost full-time for the project.

Successful signature collection

The collection of signatures was a first success: at the end of 1993 even 35,000 (instead of the necessary 25,000) signatures were collected. On January 22nd, 1994, a state assembly of Mehr Demokratie in Bayern passed the resolution to submit the petition for a referendum in the summer based on these signatures. Especially at the instigation of the representatives from the IDEE, however, at the same time as the motion for a referendum to introduce the referendum was also a petition to carry out a referendum to change the people's legislation itself (“fair referendums”) and signatures for it been collected. Since the Bavarian Senate had raised objections to this referendum, the Ministry of the Interior requested a review of this application by the Bavarian Constitutional Court after this application had been submitted to the Ministry of the Interior on July 23, 1994. On November 14, 1994, the Constitutional Court declared this referendum to be inadmissible. Reason: The popular initiative envisaged in this draft law, which provided for a referral to the state parliament in the event of an application supported by 25,000 signatures, would have required an amendment to the Bavarian constitution, which was not provided for in the law. But why the court rejected the draft law in its entirety and not just the criticized provision on the popular initiative appeared questionable to outsiders.

Successful referendum

The motion for the referendum to introduce the referendum was not affected by any of this. After the signature lists had been submitted, the Ministry of the Interior set the period within which 10% of Bavarian citizens had to register for a referendum to be from February 6th to 19th. The required number of 850,000 signatures was impressively exceeded with just under 1.2 million (13.7%). In the south of Bavaria, the administrative district of Swabia was ahead with 16.2%, in the north it was Middle Franconia with 15.7%.

In order for the bill presented in the referendum to actually become law, it had to be passed in a referendum. The CSU tried to counter this with its own draft law. It had already tried to do this in a similar way in 1991 against the initiative “The Better Garbage Concept”, which was successful in the referendum, but was defeated in the referendum with an approval of 43.5 percent compared to the CSU draft, which scored 51.0 percent . The draft law presented by the CSU (and passed by the majority of the state parliament) provided for a quorum of 25 percent of all voters so that a referendum would be valid. In addition, the signatures required for the referendum (the petition for a referendum) should only be given in official offices and within a period of just four weeks. That gave the impression that a referendum should be prevented as much as possible.

Successful referendum

The referendum, which took place on October 1, 1995, resulted in a clear majority of 57.8 percent of those who voted in favor of the “More Democracy” draft; the CSU draft received 38.7 percent with a participation of 36.9 percent of the electorate. In 86 out of 94 districts and urban districts, the draft of Mehr Demokratie won . The law passed by the people was published in the Bavarian Law and Ordinance Gazette, signed by Prime Minister Stoiber.

This achieved the goal of the referendum campaign: The referendum was introduced in Bavaria according to their ideas. The association has now been able to cease its activities.

literature

  • Rudolf Streinz: referendum and referendum. On the introduction of plebiscites into the municipal constitution. In: The administration. 16: 293-317 (1983).
  • Brochure: Campaign Citizenship Decision Referendum for citizenship in Bavaria's municipalities and districts 5th edition. Erlangen no year
  • Michael Seipel and Thomas Mayer: Triumph of the Citizens! More democracy in Bavaria - and what happens next. More democracy e. V., Munich 1997, ISBN 3-9802682-6-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also Streinz (1983), p. 296
  2. ^ Application for approval of a referendum (...) Draft law on the introduction of referendums
  3. ↑ See brochure Aktion Bürgerentscheid 5th edition, pp. 6–9
  4. ↑ Seipel / Mayer (1997), p. 19
  5. ↑ Seipel / Mayer (1997) p. 36
  6. ↑ Seipel / Mayer (1997) p. 67
  7. ↑ Seipel / Mayer (1997) p. 141
  8. ↑ Bayer. Law and Ordinance Gazette 24/1995, pp. 730–732