Citizens' petitions and referendums in Berlin

Citizens' petitions and referendums in Berlin are part of the direct democracy of the state. With them, citizens in the Berlin districts can bring political issues directly into the district council assembly (BVV) and vote directly. A request for mandatory advice and treatment can be submitted with a resident application. In the unitary community of Berlin, the districts correspond to the communities in other federal states.

Legal conditions

Direct democracy in the Berlin districts is regulated in Sections 44–47 of the District Administration Act. The applicable implementation provisions are also regulated in several state ordinances (voting regulations, state election regulations and ordinance on the validity of state electoral law in referendums). The last relevant amendment to the District Administration Act for direct democracy in the districts was passed on February 17, 2011 by the House of Representatives.

Instruments of direct democracy at district level

Development of the two-stage direct democracy at the district level in Berlin

At the district level, citizens have three instruments at their disposal with which they can directly influence the administration:

• Resident application
• Referendum
• Referendum

As in all German federal states, referendums and referendums build on each other in a two-stage process. The scope of action of these instruments in Berlin is based on the decision-making powers of the District Assembly (BVV). The resident application, on the other hand, has far lower procedural requirements and can be seen as a kind of popular initiative at the district level.

Resident application

With a resident application, a specific concern can be submitted to the respective BVV for treatment. For a successful resident application, it must be signed by at least 1000 residents of a district (by February 2011 by one percent of the residents). All residents of the district who have reached the age of 16 are authorized to sign. There is no special deadline for collecting the necessary number of signatures.

Before the start of the signature collection process, the district office must check whether it meets the formal criteria. After the signatures have been submitted, they are compared with the registration lists by the citizens' offices.

If the necessary number of signatures is available after the check, the BVV must process and coordinate the resident application within a maximum of two months. The contact persons for the resident application have the right to be heard. After the treatment in the BVV, the procedure is completed.

Referendum

With a referendum, a matter that lies in the area of ​​responsibility of the district can be brought to a referendum. For a successful referendum, three percent of the electorate identified in the district council election must sign it within six months. All residents who have reached the age of 16, are citizens of an EU member state and have had their primary residence in the district for at least three months before signing are authorized to sign.

Before starting a referendum, this must first be applied for at the responsible district office and checked there within one month for its formal and material admissibility. After handing over the signatures, they are compared with the registration lists and the district office has to decide within one month whether the petition comes about. If the decision on this is negative, the initiators can sue.

A successful referendum does not necessarily have to be dealt with in the BVV, but it has a blocking effect in that the district authorities are forbidden from taking a decision that contradicts the matter of the referendum or from starting to implement it.

A referendum can be averted by the BVV accepting the referendum within two months in a form approved by the shop stewards or unchanged.

Referendum

A referendum must be carried out if a referendum has been successfully completed in the district beforehand, or if the district assembly decides on this with 2/3 of its votes (so-called " council petition "). If the referendum is based on a successful referendum, it must be carried out no later than four months after the referendum has been established.All those eligible to vote in the district assembly are entitled to vote, i.e. all residents aged 16 and over with citizenship of an EU member state and primary residence in the district since at least three months.

A request is accepted in the referendum if a majority of the voters votes for it and these make up at least ten percent of the citizens entitled to vote (so-called " approval quorum "). If a request receives a majority of the yes votes in the referendum but does not reach the minimum approval specified by the quorum, it is considered not to have been accepted. In this case, it is also referred to as a so-called spurious failure . Until February 2011, Berlin was the last German federal state to have a participation quorum of 15% in the referendum.

The district assembly can submit an alternative proposal to the voters in the referendum. Both proposals are voted on at the same time (in the same referendum), with a key question being asked. In this, citizens can indicate which of the two submissions they prefer if both are accepted in the decision. If both proposals receive a majority of yes votes, the proposal that received more votes in the key question is accepted.

A referendum has the same legal effect as a decision of the district assembly, that is, firstly, the decision can be rejected when the district office takes a resolution for the first time and, secondly, for most issues, there is the possibility that the state level will take the question to itself and thus make it responsible of the district withdraws.

General information about the instruments

Subject matter, admissibility and liability

Resident applications and citizens' petitions can be started on all questions on which the BVV can also pass resolutions in accordance with Sections 12 and 13 of the District Administration Act. Any resident applications and citizens' petitions that violate the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany or the constitution of the State of Berlin are not permitted. In contrast to other federal states (e.g. Saarland ), citizens' petitions cannot be inadmissible simply because they have financial implications.

The respective district office is responsible for the legal examination of petitions for citizens and residents' applications. First of all, a non-binding and essentially formal examination takes place when the procedure is registered. If the district office declares the procedure inadmissible, the initiative can file an action against this decision before the state constitutional court.

Citizens' petitions are in principle binding in Berlin, but have only a recommending or requesting - i.e. non-binding - effect on issues relating to the district budget, the use of special funds and questions relating to building law. Due to the situation as a unified municipality , it is special in Berlin that the district office can refuse to implement a decision of the BVV in many cases. The district office is only obliged to implement it when it passes a resolution a second time. Since referendums are treated as equivalent to the resolutions of the BVV, the vast majority of them are non-binding. Some referendums could become binding if a second successful referendum - comparable to a second BVV resolution - were initiated. Due to the procedural hurdles, this case has not yet occurred in practice.

Procedural formalities

For citizens' petitions, three confidants have to be named in Berlin, for resident applications it is “up to three”, whereby the term “contact person” is used here. The confidants or contact persons act as contact persons for both the district office and the citizens and are entitled to make binding declarations within the framework of the direct democratic procedure.

For every petition, an estimate must be submitted of the likely costs of implementing the request. In addition to the cost estimate of the initiative, the district office also prepares one.

The person responsible for the procedure (the initiative) and the persons of trust must be named on the signature lists. The cost estimates by the initiative and the district office must be printed out and the main concerns of the procedure listed. In Berlin, several people may express their support on a signature list. The signatories must enter their full name, the address of their primary residence, their date of birth and a handwritten signature in legible form. The information (with the exception of the handwritten signature) does not necessarily have to be complete, but suitable to clearly identify the person signing. Within the framework of the legal requirements, the initiative creates the signature lists on its own responsibility, but these must be checked for admissibility by the district electoral office before the collection begins. For reasons of data protection, the district offices are obliged to destroy all signature lists submitted there after the end of a procedure.

Citizens' petitions and residents ' applications can be signed in Berlin both at the citizens' offices and in so-called “free collection” on the street by entering them in signature lists. Entry by letter or online signature is not possible. In principle, collections can be made anywhere in public space - special registration of collections of signatures is not necessary.

Donation transparency

In Berlin, since an amendment to the Voting Act passed on July 1, 2010, the sponsor of a popular initiative or a referendum must disclose received donations from a total amount of 5,000 euros together with the name of the donor. This is to ensure that citizens can recognize whether and which financially strong interests support an initiative. This regulation was only introduced in Berlin in 2010 after the first two referendums on Tempelhof Airport and ProReli revealed massive financial support from interested parties without the public having any more detailed information about the individual donors or the amount of the donations. Previously, in Berlin there was a disclosure requirement for individual donations of 50,000 euros or more.

Procedural costs

Citizens 'petitions and residents' applications initially do not cause any particular additional expenditure by the public sector , since the work required for this in the district offices (checking the signatures) can be carried out with the available human resources. The public costs of holding a referendum can vary considerably. If the vote is combined with a regular election, additional costs only arise to a relatively small extent due to the additional time required by the election workers. If the decision is made without such a link, all costs are incurred that would also have to be incurred for carrying out an election (notification by letter, expense allowance for voting assistants, etc.).

The Berlin district direct democracy in practice (selection)

Coppi high school in Lichtenberg

In 2005, the Lichtenberg district decided to merge the musically oriented Hans -und- Hilde -Coppi-Gymnasium with the Kant -Gymnasium . The science / mathematics-oriented Forster- Oberstufengymnasium should instead move to the premises of the Coppi-Gymnasium. The referendum turned against this project in December 2005 and received around 11,000 signatures as a result. Since the district did not come to an agreement with the initiators, there was a referendum on September 17, 2006, parallel to the House of Representatives election.

The referendum was not only the first in Berlin, but also the first in which the district assembly made use of its right to submit a competing proposal for a vote. This stipulated that even after a merger of the Coppi and Kant schools, all teaching offers should be retained.

In the referendum, the initiative's proposal (voting question A) was accepted with 65.5% yes-votes and 34.5% no-votes. The submission of the district assembly (voting question B) received a greater direct approval with 68.5% yes-votes and only 31.5% no-votes, in the key question (voting question C), however, 55.9% were in favor of the submission Initiative and only 44.1% for the submission of the BVV. A total of 47.36% of those entitled to vote took part, which significantly exceeded the 15% participation quorum valid at the time.

The district assembly implemented the result of the referendum in its resolution of November 21, 2006.

Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

→ Main article : Rudi-Dutschke-Straße

Public celebration for the renaming of Kochstrasse to Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse, April 30, 2008

Following a suggestion from the taz in 2004, the district assembly in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg decided after a long public debate that parts of Kochstrasse in the Kreuzberg district should be renamed after Rudi Dutschke . Supported by the CDU, some residents, including Axel Springer AG , turned against this project. In the vote on January 21, 2007, however, a clear majority of 57.1% of those who voted voted against the initiative's concerns. The Kochstrasse was then renamed on April 30, 2008 in the section between Friedrichstrasse and Oranienstrasse in Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse .

Groß-Glienicker See peninsula in Spandau

In October 2006, the Spandau district office presented plans for the development of the peninsula in Groß Glienicker See , on which a private investor wanted to build an “application center for sport and health”. A citizens' initiative turned against it and demanded the rededication of the entire peninsula as a landscape protection area. In the following year, the initiative collected 15,614 signatures of which 13,777 were eventually found valid. Although 86.8% of the voters in the referendum on January 27, 2008 were in favor of the initiative, the referendum ultimately failed because of the 15% participation quorum that was valid at the time, as only 13.6% of those entitled to vote took part. The referendum on the peninsula was the first in Berlin to fail because of the quorum.

In view of the disagreement between the overwhelming majority of votes and low participation, there was then a public debate about the interpretation of the voting results. The focus was on the reasons for the failure of the referendum. On the one hand, the thesis was put forward that a majority of Spandau's citizens were against the concerns of the citizens' initiative and had boycotted the vote based on the strategic calculation of failure of the participation quorum. Another thesis was based on the assumption that the matter was only of local interest, which would inevitably be problematic in geographically extensive districts like Spandau. Against this background, either a lowering or abolition of the district quorums must be considered or the introduction of citizens' petitions at district level must be considered.

Mediaspree in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

→ Main article : Mediaspree

Logo of the citizens' initiative "Sink Mediaspree"

In the 1990s, a group of private investors began planning an industrial area ("Mediaspree") along the banks of the Spree in Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. When it became clear to the general public that the planned extensive construction measures would cut off free access to the Spree for many citizens and that a large number of alternative cultural projects that had settled there would be threatened with eviction, the initiative “Mediaspree sink “Civic resistance to the development plans. The initiative organized a successful referendum that, among other things, called for the eaves height of new buildings to be limited to 22 meters below a 50-meter-free bank. For the subsequent referendum, the district assembly made a counter-proposal, which essentially comprised an examination of the construction plans drawn up so far. With a turnout of 19%, 86.7% of those who voted voted in favor of the citizens' initiative. Since BVV can only make one recommendation on this matter, the referendum is non-binding. The referendum was the first in Berlin in which a BVV exercised its right to submit an alternative proposal.

Since the implementation of the referendum would lead to alleged compensation payments in the hundreds of millions, this is the subject of intensive negotiations between initiators, investors and representatives from the district and the state. The district assembly of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg promised that it would respect the decision, but the extent and form of the implementation of the decision is still uncertain. Due to the high investment volume associated with the construction project, the State of Berlin has threatened several times that the entire construction process will be withdrawn from the authority of the district (and thus also from the referendum). Negotiations are currently ongoing.

Tempelhof Airport as a World Heritage Site in Tempelhof-Schöneberg

In the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, the action alliance “be-4-tempelhof.de” initiated the petition “Preserve the Tempelhof Airport monument - protect it as a world cultural heritage”. The citizens' petition contained the request to the district office, which the state monument protection office asked to extend the existing monument protection to open spaces and taxiways and runways, which also includes active flight operations. The designation of Tempelhof Airport as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is to be pursued intensively. Furthermore, the land use plan from 1984 is to be put into force again for the site and a conversion or non-flight development is to be refrained from in the future.

The initiators were able to collect 10,417 signatures, 7,733 of which were recognized as valid. The referendum came about and was held on June 7, 2009 with a participation of 37.9%. 65.2% of the voters approved the referendum. The thus successful referendum is on the same level as the decision of the district assembly, but has - among other things, because none of the concerns contained in the competence of the district - only non-binding effect.

In the same year, the action alliance started a referendum with a similar concern (see referendum Tempelhof as a world cultural heritage ).

Table overview

Below is a tabular overview of all direct democratic procedures carried out in Berlin since 2006 in the districts, sorted by type of procedure.

See also

• Direct democracy
• Direct democracy in Berlin
• People's legislation in Berlin
• Berlin Housing Supply Act

Web links

• The regional returning officer of Berlin
• State constitution of Berlin on the state portal of Berlin
• List of all citizens' petitions, referendums and resident applications in Berlin on the website of Mehr Demokratie e. V.

Individual evidence

Laws and Regulations

1. ↑ Section 45 of the District Administration Act
2. ↑ Section 45 (5) of the District Administration Act
3. ↑ Section 46, Paragraph 1, Clause 1 of the District Administration Act
4. ↑ Sections 46–47 of the District Administration Act

• Section V (Art. 59 (2), 61, 62 and 63) of the state constitution of Berlin on the state portal of Berlin
• Section XI (Art. 100) of the state constitution of Berlin on the state portal of Berlin
• State election law (PDF; 16 kB) on the state portal of Berlin
• District administration law on the state portal of Berlin
• Ordinance on the implementation of the law on popular initiatives, referendums and referendums (Voting Regulations - AbstO) (PDF; 11 kB) on the Berlin state portal
• State election regulations (PDF; 43 kB) on the state portal of Berlin
• Ordinance on the validity of state suffrage for citizens' decisions (PDF; 11 kB) on the state portal of Berlin

Official sources

1. ^ Andreas Schmidt von Puskás: Counting of the citizens' decision in Lichtenberg. Final result. In: statistik-berlin.de. Berlin State Returning Officer, State Statistical Office Berlin, September 2006, p. 1 , archived from the original on March 5, 2011 ; Retrieved March 5, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Citizens' decision in Tempelhof-Schöneberg on June 7, 2009 on the subject of “Preserving the Tempelhof Airport monument - protecting it as a world cultural heritage”. (PDF; 1.4 MB) Final result. In: berlin.de. Election office of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, June 11, 2009, p. 17 , archived from the original on March 5, 2011 ; Retrieved March 5, 2011 . 

Sources of initiatives

1. ↑ Tempelhof Airport: New citizens' initiative started. Press release. In: volksentscheid-berlin.de.de. Action alliance be-4-tempelhof.de, October 5, 2008, p. 1 , archived from the original on March 5, 2011 ; Retrieved March 5, 2011 . 

Other evidence

1. ^ Entry in the Democracy Blog, January 29, 2008

Remarks

1. ↑ § 40b (PDF) Voting Act
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Parallel petitions by an initiator group in three districts at the same time.
3. ^ Judgment of the 2nd Chamber of February 14, 2011 (VG 2 K 77.10). District office Treptow-Köpenick must allow petitions . Press release TrKö 7/2011, February 24, 2011
   Further course of the matter unclear.

Please note the information on legal issues!