Law on Processing Citizens' Submissions

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The law on the processing of citizens ' submissions , or submissions law , was a law of the German Democratic Republic for informal conflict management.

history

On February 6, 1953, the first "Ordinance on the Examination of Proposals and Complaints from Working People" came into force, signed by Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl and State Secretary Werner Eggerath . According to the preamble, the "creation of the foundations of socialism in the German Democratic Republic" makes it urgently necessary "to promote the development of criticism to a large extent in order to fight the shortcomings and bureaucratic distortions in the state apparatus and against violations of democratic legality. "

A petition law was first passed by the Council of State on February 27, 1961 in order to realize "the right of citizens to actively participate in the management of the people's democratic state and socialist companies". After changes in 1966 and 1969, the last version dated June 19, 1975, which came into force on July 1, 1975. It regulated the procedure for processing the petitions guaranteed in Article 103 of the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic of 1968 .

The law on the jurisdiction and procedure of courts for reviewing administrative decisions (GNV), which came into force on July 1, 1989 , was no longer implemented due to further political developments. In addition, this law did not provide for any effective individual legal protection within the meaning of Article 19, Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law, since ideologically there was still a lack of an understanding of enforceable rights of defense against the state by the individual.

The petitions and their processing replaced both the re-establishment of an independent administrative judiciary after 1945 and laws such as the West German Administrative Court Code (1960) and the Administrative Procedure Act (1977), since according to the ideological self-image of the GDR unified state, there could be no conflicting interests between citizens and the state.

With the entry into force of the Basic Law and simple federal law in the accession area, the Entry Act became obsolete through Art. 3 and Art. 8 of the Unification Treaty .

Content and rating

The aim of the Petitions Act of 1975 was "to help citizens to overcome personal difficulties, to strengthen their trust in the state organs, to promote their willingness to participate in the solution of state tasks and to consolidate socialist legalism" (§ 2 para . 2).

According to § 1, individual citizens and social organizations could turn in writing or verbally with suggestions, tips, concerns and complaints to the people's representatives, the state and economic governing bodies, the state- owned companies and combines , the socialist cooperatives and institutions as well as the members of parliament. However, the law did not apply to innovators , legal remedies and other applications, the processing of which was regulated by special legal provisions.

The decision on submissions was made by the responsible manager or an authorized representative (§§ 4 Paragraph 1, 5 Paragraph 1), unless he was biased (§ 6).

There was a right to a well-founded written or verbal answer at the latest within 4 weeks after receipt with disciplinary responsibility of the person in charge in the event of disregard (§§ 7, 13), but the petitioner had no means of realizing any promises made. If necessary, a further input to the superordinate body or the superordinate head was possible. Decisions by the heads of central state organs were final (Section 8).

Sections 9 to 11 provided for the recording and regular evaluation of the submissions and their results as well as a reporting obligation for the councils to the local people's representatives .

In the submissions, well-known problems of everyday life were brought up as well as taboo social topics. They were thus an important source of information, with the help of which social disharmonies were made visible to the leadership elite and, in addition to this educational function, they also fulfilled an integrative task to defuse potential social conflict.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Felix Mühlberg: Informal conflict management. On the history of the submission in the GDR Chemnitz, Univ.-Diss. 1999, p. 112 ff.
  2. ^ Decree of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic on the submissions of the citizens and the processing by the state organs of February 27, 1961. verfassungen.de
  3. ^ Input Act DDR Lexicon, accessed on May 30, 2019
  4. ↑ GBl. DDR I No. 28 p. 327
  5. ↑ Maira Mildred Susanne Baderschneider: The citizen as judge: an empirical study of the honorary judge at the general administrative courts. Peter Lang Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-61208-8 , p. 14 ff.
  6. ↑ cf. Alf Lüdtke, Peter Becker (ed.): Files, entries, shop windows. The GDR and its texts. Exploring rulership and everyday life. Berlin 1997
  7. ↑ cf. Ina Merkel: "We are not the bitch corner of the nation." Letters to GDR television. Cologne 1998
  8. ^ Annett Kästner: Submissions in the civil law of the GDR. An examination of submissions on tenancy law claims from 1986 and 1987. Berlin 2006
  9. ↑ Steffen Elsner: Accompanying Stabiliiserungsmechanismen dictatorial rule: The input beings in the GDR. In: Christoph Boyer (ed.): Repression and promise of prosperity. To stabilize party rule in the GDR and the CSSR. Dresden 1999, pp. 75-88
  10. ↑ cf. Hartmut Bettin: Between Darkness and Transfiguration: Input analyzes of the Ministry of Health Service (MfG) of the GDR as a source for describing the main problem areas and coping strategies in the GDR health system. Medizinhistorisches Journal 2016, pp. 327–363
  11. ↑ Katja Wüllner: Behind the Facade - The institutional system of monument preservation in the GDR examines the example of the Thuringian cities of Erfurt, Weimar and Eisenach . Cottbus-Senftenberg, Univ.-Diss. 2015, p. 170 ff.