Referendum (Germany)

A referendum is an instrument of direct democracy in Germany . It is used to determine the will of the population in a reorganization of the federal territory carried out in accordance with Article 29 Paragraphs 4-6 of the Basic Law .

Procedure

If “in a contiguous, demarcated settlement and economic area, parts of which are located in several countries and which has at least one million inhabitants, a tenth of those eligible to vote in the Bundestag [is] demanded by referendum that this area should be a unified nationality will ... ”, the Bundestag must either grant the request or conduct a referendum within a period of two years.

If the reorganization of the federal territory called for in the referendum also finds a majority in the referendum, the Bundestag must comply with the request within a further two years. A reorganization of the federal territory decided in this way does not require any additional legitimation in an obligatory referendum .

Legal basis

The referendum at the federal level is regulated in Germany by the following laws and ordinances:

• Art. 29 para. 4-6 GG;
• Sections 2–17 and 38–39 of the law on the procedure for referendums, referendums and referendums in accordance with Article 29 (6) of the Basic Law ;
• Sections 1-45 and 93 of the Ordinance Implementing the Act under Article 29 (6) of the Basic Law .

Referendums at the state level

A referendum on the atomic weapons of the German armed forces planned in the federal states of Hamburg and Bremen was banned as unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court on July 30, 1958 , because defense matters were subject to the sole competence of the federal government (and are still subject to this today).

On March 1, 2015, the instrument of the non-binding referendum was introduced in Bavaria . The state government or the majority of the state parliament could then have a referendum carried out if necessary, but would not have been bound by its result. The opposition would not have had the right to hold a referendum. The SPD and the Greens saw this as an unconstitutional strengthening of the Prime Minister's power and sued the law. The Bavarian Constitutional Court approved the plaintiffs in its decision of November 21, 2016 and declared the corresponding Article 88a of the Bavarian State Election Act to be unconstitutional and therefore null and void.

literature

• Arne Pautsch: The “consultative referendum” on the constitutional test stand . In: Law Studies & Exams . Edition 2/2015. Tübingen 2015, p. 119–126 ( booklet as PDF , 1.4 MB).
• Mario Martini : The Citizens' Polls as a Building Block of Democracy, DÖV 2015, 981–992.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ bundesarchiv.de
2. ↑ dejure.org
3. ↑ Edgar Wolfrum : The successful democracy: History of the Federal Republic of Germany from its beginnings to the present . Klett-Cotta, 2006, p. 143 .
4. ↑ Bavarian Constitutional Court, decision of November 21, 2016, file numbers 15-VIII-14 and 15-VIII-15