Emergency parliament

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An emergency parliament is a constitutional body that, in the event of an emergency, if the parliament is not functional, exercises its rights, provided that the respective constitution provides for this.

An emergency parliament generally means a reduced body of the original parliaments , which partially assumes their rights in emergency situations ( state of emergency , state of emergency ) in which the parliamentary organs cannot meet in time and / or not fully. The emergency parliament is granted legislative rights limited in terms of time and content in advance to maintain the democratic separation of powers as well as state security and order. With the elimination of the causes of the formation of the emergency parliament, it returns its rights to the represented parliamentary organs.

The term of the emergency parliament is legally not clearly defined. It describes a state of provisional continuation of the legislature in emergency situations.

history

An emergency parliament was never planned in the German Reich . In emergency situations, the work of parliaments was restricted mainly on the grounds that the situation required urgent decisions that would have to be taken too late or not at all in the regular decision-making and legislative process. This is how Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution a . a. provides that the Reich President has dictatorship in special cases (so-called enabling paragraph). From 1914 to 1933, numerous enabling laws were also passed. Legislative power went partly or completely to the administratively rulers. The complete disempowerment of the Reichstag and the establishment of the National Socialist dictatorship began with the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933 .

The constitution of the GDR (1949–1990) also had no legislative representation of its parliament ( Volkskammer ) in emergency situations. In § 52, in emergencies, it determined the Council of State to adopt a state of defense in its place. The Defense Act of the GDR enabled the Council of State to regulate the rights of citizens and the administration of justice in accordance with the requirements of the defense of the republic in a manner deviating from the constitution for the duration of the state of defense .

Federal Republic of Germany

Emergency parliaments according to the constitution

Federation

For the first time in German history, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany 1968 provides, in the event of a defense , that available representatives of the Bundestag and Bundesrat form the joint committee in the sense of an emergency parliament (Seventeenth Act amending the Basic Law of June 24, 1968). Sections 53a and 115e of the Basic Law form the basis. This not only regulates his rights, but also the limits of his powers, in particular the joint exclusion may not change the Basic Law. This joint committee never had to meet as an emergency parliament from 1949 to 2019 .

Saxony

The Constitution of the Free State of Saxony of 27 May 1992, as amended from 1 January 2014 allows in times of crisis, a committee formed by all factions of the Diet, the emergency parliament as the rights of the parliament can accept (Article 113, paragraph 1). This happens when there is an imminent threat to the existence or to the free democratic basic order of the country or to the vital supplies of the population as well as if the state parliament is prevented from meeting immediately in the event of an emergency as a result of a natural disaster or a particularly serious accident. The constitution may not be changed by a law passed by this committee and the Prime Minister's confidence may not be withdrawn.

Discussion in the wake of the 2020 corona pandemic

With the occurrence of the corona pandemic , Germany was also affected by restrictions on social contacts in 2020. Meetings of more than two people who do not live in the same household were prohibited from March 23, 2020. In many places, the question of maintaining parliamentary work arose when members of parliament or community representatives can no longer ensure their presence in parliaments due to these restrictions or concerns or precautionary quarantine . For the first time, this danger no longer only threatens in the event of a defense or war . The now global pandemic also threatens to restrict parliamentary action. Individual members of parliament and parties are calling for a discussion about the establishment of the emergency parliament and the prior expansion of the Basic Law beyond the case of defense.

In order to ensure the functionality of the Berlin state parliament, in mid-March 2020 MPs from the SPD , CDU and the Left are in favor of an amendment to the state constitution in favor of an emergency parliament solution . According to this, the voting rights of the 160 members of the House of Representatives should be delegated to 27 members of an emergency parliament .

Agreement of regional emergency parliaments

On March 17, 2020, the 6 parliamentary groups in the Bavarian state parliament agreed to meet with only a fifth of the members of the parliament. Furthermore, there is no questioning of majorities ( pairing agreement ). Skeptics fear that individual parliamentary groups could terminate the agreement or that the quorum of the emergency parliament could be questioned. On March 19, 2020, Prime Minister Markus Söder made the first government statement in front of the emergency parliament.

On March 19, 2020, only 14 out of 27 members of the Mainhausen ( Hessen ) municipal council met because important issues had to be resolved urgently. The parliamentary groups had agreed on this in advance, so that this emergency parliament had a quorum.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Universal Lexicon online , called March 24, 2020
  2. ^ Jedermanns Lexikon, Third Volume, Berlin-Grunewald 1929, Hermann Klemm A.-G. Publishing House, p. 800
  3. ↑ Law for the Defense of the German Democratic Republic (Defense Law) of September 20, 1961, Section 4 Paragraph 3, on Documentarchiv online , accessed March 24, 2020
  4. ↑ Ebooks online , accessed March 24, 2020
  5. ↑ Stern.de of March 16, 2020 , accessed March 24, 2020
  6. ↑ DPA / ND: Debate about plans for an emergency parliament , on Neues Deutschland online March 23, 2020 , accessed March 23, 2020
  7. ↑ Achim Wendler, ARD capital studio: How does the Bundestag remain able to act? on Tagesschau.de on March 17, 2020 , accessed on March 24, 2020
  8. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk online March 16, 2020 , accessed March 24, 2020
  9. ↑ Oliver Signus: The emergency parliament is in session - for eight minutes , on op-online from March 21, 2020 , accessed March 23, 2020