Lübeck judgment

The Lübeck judgment (also known as the Lübeck decision ) is a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of December 5, 1956, which concerned the admissibility of a referendum to restore the statehood of the former state of Lübeck .

background

In 1815 the Free City of Lübeck became a member of the German Confederation ; In 1867 Lübeck became a member state of the North German Confederation , which was expanded in 1871 and renamed the German Empire . Even under the Weimar Constitution of 1919, Lübeck remained a member of the German Empire as a state.

Under the National Socialist rule, the states of the German Reich lost their statehood in 1934 through the law on the rebuilding of the Reich and were brought into line. Although the states had lost their status as a state, they remained as legal entities . Lübeck also initially continued to exist as a state, but was incorporated into the state of Prussia in 1937 by Section 6 of the law on Greater Hamburg and other territorial adjustments, with the exception of its communities of Schattin and Utecht , located in the state of Mecklenburg .

The motion to carry out a referendum and its rejection

After the end of World War II and the entry into force of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany , the association wanted Father Municipal Association Lübeck 1949 eV on the basis of Art. 29 of the Basic Law in conjunction with the law on referendum and plebiscite in reorganization of the national territory under Article 29, paragraph 2 to 6 of Constitutional Law of December 23, 1955 achieve that in the areas belonging to the former state of Lübeck a referendum on the formation of a new state Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck is carried out. For this purpose, the association submitted a corresponding application to the responsible Federal Minister of the Interior on February 1, 1956 . However, the latter rejected the application by decision in the same month. The justification for the rejection was that Lübeck had already lost its independence in 1937 and was therefore not subject to the provisions of Article 29 of the Basic Law.

Complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court

The law on referendums and referendums in the reorganization of the federal territory according to Art. 29 Paragraphs 2 to 6 of the Basic Law made it possible in Section 5 Paragraph 4 Clause 3 that complaints could be lodged with the Federal Constitutional Court against rejected referendums. The association made use of this in a written statement dated February 24, 1956 and applied for the rejection notice to be revoked and the petition for a referendum to be allowed.

The association argued that the incorporation of Lübeck was void as a National Socialist arbitrary measure under Section 6 of the Greater Hamburg Act and that the incorporation of Lübeck lost its effectiveness with the occupation of the city by the British occupying power, meaning that Lübeck had existed again as a German member state since the beginning of May 1945 . By regulation No. 46 of the British military government of August 23, 1946 (OJ MilReg, p. 305), in which the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein was given the status of a state and which did not treat Lübeck separately, the independent state of Lübeck was then was incorporated into the newly founded Land Schleswig-Holstein, whereby Art. 29 GG is applicable.

After an oral hearing and a clarification decision, the Federal Constitutional Court rejected the association's complaint as admissible but unfounded. As a justification, it stated that Article 29 of the Basic Law only covered changes in area after May 8, 1945. The . Regulation No 46 of the British Military Government is therefore lost, although from 1946, but was not Luebeck again at this time independently and have by Regulation not its independence; there were no indications for the association's argument that Lübeck's independence was restored after the end of the war.

literature

BVerfGE 6, 20 to 32, judgment of the Second Senate of December 5, 1956, Az. 2 BvP 3/56.

Web links

All versions of Art. 29 GG

(The one relevant to this article is the first version dated May 24, 1949.)