Reinhard Wolters (politician)

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Reinhard Wolters (* 1951 ) is a Hessian politician ( CDU ) and was invalidly elected Lord Mayor of Bad Homburg vor der Höhe .

Life and education

Reinhard Wolters worked as a research assistant at the University of Essen between 1978 and moved to the Ruhr Area Municipal Association in October 1978 . There he worked initially as a city planner and later in a managerial position.

politics

In 1997 he was elected as the building department of the city of Bad Homburg and took up this position on October 1, 1997. In the runoff election on March 22, 1998, Wolters was elected Lord Mayor of Bad Homburg with 53.6 percent of the vote against SPD candidate Beate Fleige.

Election contestation

Wolters' direct election was challenged by a group of citizens in March 1998. The background was the following:

According to the plaintiffs, the predecessor in office Wolfgang Assmann had unilaterally sided with the CDU candidate Wolters and thus violated the principle of neutrality as the incumbent election officer. Furthermore, the coalition of the CDU, FDP and Free Voters at the time kept silent about a real estate deal that was unfavorable for the city until after the election. Even if Reinhard Wolters himself was not involved in this business, this had a major impact on the choice. So the candidate of the Greens would not have made an election recommendation for Wolters if he had known about this process.

In the first instance, the action was dismissed in June 1999 by the Frankfurt am Main Administrative Court. In November 2001, the Hessian Administrative Court (VGH) in Kassel ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and declared the election to be invalid because of "improper electoral influence". This ruling caused a strong surprise in professional circles and led to a considerable tightening of the requirements for neutrality for election officers in future elections.

Wolters lodged a complaint against the non-admission of the appeal and filed a fundamental rights complaint with the Hessian State Court . The Hessian State Court rejected Wolters' application for an interim order. The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig , however, allowed the appeal in July 2002 to clarify the fundamental legal issue.

With the decision of April 8, 2003, the Federal Administrative Court declared the election invalid and confirmed the tightening of the requirements for neutrality that the VGH had set. He declared the 1998 election invalid and ordered new elections.

Wolters himself welcomed the "clear standards that the court had drawn with its verdict" and announced that he would again be a candidate for the citizens in the new election. However, the CDU decided not to nominate Reinhard Wolter again with an extremely narrow majority, but instead to nominate Ursula Jungherr as OB candidate. She served as mayor from 2003 to 2009.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Usinger Anzeiger of December 1, 2002 "I am the only one who suffers" ( online version )
  2. ^ VG Frankfurt am Main, decision of June 18, 1999, Az. 7 E 2303/98
  3. ↑ VGH Hessen, judgment of November 29, 2001, Az. 8 UE 3800/00, full text
  4. ↑ VGH Leipzig, Az. 8 UE 3800/00
  5. ↑ StGH Hessen, decision of July 10, 2002, P.St. 1774 eA, full text
  6. ↑ BVerwG, decision of July 31, 2002, Az. 8 B 49.02, full text
  7. ↑ BVerwG, judgment of April 8, 2003, Az. 8 C 14.02, full text
  8. ↑ Usinger Anzeiger from April 9, 2003 "Election invalid - Bad Homburg elects again" Online version
personal data
SURNAME Wolters, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU), Lord Mayor of Bad Homburg
DATE OF BIRTH 1951