Legislative body

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The legislative body was a constitutional body of the Free City of Frankfurt .

The Legislative Body according to the Constitutional Amendment Act

The legislative body was established with the constitution supplementary act , the constitution of the Free City of Frankfurt of 1816. According to Art. 9 it consisted of 85 members, including

The Senate was free to decide which of the three benches the elected candidates were from. Most of the elected belonged to the senators 'and lay judges' banks. The Permanent Citizens' Representation was obliged to ensure when they were elected that some members of the Stadtrechnungs-Revisionscolleg were always elected to the legislative body.

The procedure for the indirect election of the 45 members, who were appointed by the citizens, was regulated in Article 11 of the Constitutional Amendment Act.

The right to vote was tied to citizenship , which, according to Article 6 of the Constitutional Amendment, required assets of at least 5,000 guilders, unless the legislative body decided on an exception: the legislative body, however, at the request of the Senate, reserves the right to dispense in favor of excellent talent .

Jews were therefore excluded from the right to vote, even if they were wealthy, as they could not acquire citizenship, but were regarded as subjects of the state and had only been treated as citizens under private law since 1824 . There was also no right to vote for women .

The citizens entitled to vote each elected 25 electors in three departments . The first section included nobles, scholars from all faculties, civil servants, landlords, rentiers , officers, teachers and non-guild artists . The second division comprised bankers, wholesalers and small traders, innkeepers, certified accountants and commercial clerks, sworn brokers, shopkeepers and all innkeepers who did not belong to any guild . In the third section, all professional craftsmen and artists as well as the other citizens voted who did not belong to either of the other two sections and who do some other legally permitted trade and food there .

The college of 75 electors (in 1823 there were nine more deputies from the rural communities) then elected 45 citizens from all classes of the entire local Christian citizenship in a meeting in the Römer , ... in whose righteousness and knowledge they trust . With the exception of the members of the Senate and the Permanent Citizens' Representation, all male citizens of Christian denomination had the right to vote

  • who was not yet 30 years old,
  • who was in the paid service of a private person,
  • anyone who has been punished for an embarrassing crime or is still under investigation,
  • all fallites , unless someone has reported his insolvency to a court or has secretly established estates or decency agreements with his creditors before he has fully, d. H. without deduction or discount.

The legislative body was responsible for legislating, approving and collecting taxes, approving the budget and overseeing the state budget. The executive committee of the Legislative Body consisted of the President, two Vice-Presidents and a secretariat of four legal scholars.

During and after the March Revolution

In the revolution of 1848/1849 in the Free City of Frankfurt , the demand for a direct and equal election of parliament was loud.

The Constitutional Committee of the City of Frankfurt submitted a draft law that provided for the abolition of the legislative body and instead the election of a constituent assembly of the Free City of Frankfurt . The Senate approved the proposal and submitted it to the Legislative Body. After lengthy deliberations, the latter approved the proposal on October 9th without making any changes, thereby approving its own dissolution. On October 17, 1848, the referendum on the constitutional amendments took place. In Department I, 349 citizens approved the bill, 97 rejected it. In the second section there were 774 supporters out of 172 opponents and in the third section 1189 supporters were against 278 votes against. With that the legislative body was abolished.

At the end of 1849 the Constituent Assembly fell asleep. On December 31, 1849, the Senate decided that the Legislative Body should be re-elected in accordance with the Constitutional Amendment Act. from 1850 the old conditions were therefore restored.

In 1853 the rural residents were given the right to vote. The Organic Law of September 16, 1856 changed the electoral law. Now 11 members were elected by the rural communities and 57 by the citizenship. The permanent citizen representation still determined 20 members, but the Senate did not. With the reform of the electoral law of 1866 direct elections were introduced, but there were no more elections before the Prussian annexation.

President of the Legislative Assembly

Term of office Surname
1817-1824 Friedrich Maximilian Freiherr von Günderrode
1825 Johann Friedrich von Meyer
1826 Georg Friedrich von Guaita
1827 Friedrich Philipp Wilhelm Freiherr von Malapert, called Neufville
1828 Siegmund Paul Hiepe
1829-30 Friedrich Philipp Wilhelm Freiherr von Malapert, called Neufville
1831-34 Ferdinand Maximilian Starck
1835 Georg Friedrich von Guaita
1836-48 Ferdinand Maximilian Starck
1849 Friedrich Kugler
1850 Johann Jacob Conrad Kloß
1851 Samuel Gottlieb Müller
1852-54 Georg Wilhelm Hessenberg
1855 Emil von Oven
1856 Georg Wilhelm Hessenberg
1857 Eduard Franz Souchay de la Duboissiere
1858-61 Siegmund Friedrich Müller
1862 Wilhelm Carl Friedrich Textor
1863 Siegmund Friedrich Müller
1864-66 Georg Julius Jung

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