People's legislation in Hamburg

The people's legislation in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg , as an element of direct democracy in the state , was re-introduced in 1996. It continues to exist alongside the previous instruments of representative democracy ( indirect democracy ), the election of representatives of the people in the state parliament , who vote on legislation there, among other things . The development of the legal framework of the people's legislation in Hamburg, as well as registered popular initiatives and, if successful, the respective referendums or referendums are shown below.

history

The Hamburg constitution of January 7, 1921 already contained the possibility of a referendum and referendum. In limited cases, these could override citizenship resolutions and even result in the dissolution of citizenship . During the existence of this constitution until its end under National Socialism , there was never a referendum or referendum. The final post-war constitution passed in 1952 initially no longer provided for such a possibility.

In 1996, the SPD-led ( Senate Voscherau III ) Hamburg citizenship reintroduced the possibility of popular legislation through a constitutional amendment. As a result, however, the people's legislation in Hamburg remained controversial and the CDU ( Senate von Beust II ), which ruled with an absolute majority after the election in February 2004 , introduced a series of tightening of the people's legislation by means of a reform. As a result of the successful referendum »Save the referendum«, the Hamburg citizenship decided on June 14, 2007 a further reform of the people's legislation, which, apart from minor editorial changes, corresponds to the law in force until 2005. The complications were thus reversed.

Legal conditions

The legal basis for the people's legislation in Hamburg was created with the fifth law amending the constitution of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg of May 29, 1996. This introduced an additional element of direct democracy at the state level in the city-state of Hamburg. It is set out in Articles 48 and 50 of the Constitution. The more detailed regulations for popular legislation can be found in the law on popular initiatives, popular initiatives and referenda.

Instruments of popular legislation

The state of Hamburg knows a total of five instruments of popular legislation:

• Popular petition
• Popular initiative
• Referendum
• Referendum
• Optional referendum

Popular petition

With the people's petition, citizens can bring a matter to the Hamburg citizenship. This must be dealt with by the Hamburg citizenship in a suitable committee, where the petitioners have the right to be heard. For a successful people's petition 10,000 signatures must be collected, there is no special deadline for collecting them.

Popular initiative

With a popular initiative, citizens can bring a concern to the Hamburg citizenship for binding treatment in plenary. It is also the necessary first step to initiate a referendum. For a successful popular initiative, the signatures of 10,000 eligible voters must be collected within a period of six months. If the Hamburg citizenship does not take over the matter within four months, the initiators of the popular initiative can initiate a referendum.

Referendum

With a referendum, citizens can bring a matter to the Hamburg citizenship for binding treatment in plenary. It is also the necessary step to carry out a referendum. For a successful referendum, 5% (approx. 60,000) of Hamburg's residents who are eligible to vote must sign it within three weeks. If the Hamburg citizenship does not accept a successful referendum within four months, a referendum is made.

Referendum

In the referendum, the citizens entitled to vote vote directly on the issue of a referendum. You can only vote with "Yes" or "No". The Hamburg citizenship can decide with a majority of its members to also put a competing proposal to the vote in the referendum. In this case, the voters can vote "yes" or "no" on both documents.

In order for a bill to be accepted in the referendum, it must both receive a majority of the votes cast (or a two-thirds majority in the case of constitutional amendments) and skip an approval quorum . The latter depends on whether the referendum takes place independently or at the same time as a state or federal election:

1. Independent referendum
   A proposal must receive the approval of a total of 20% of the eligible voters.
2. Simultaneously with a citizenship or Bundestag election.
   A proposal must achieve a number of yes votes that corresponds to the majority of the Hamburg votes represented in the simultaneously elected parliament.

If both templates receive more "yes" than "no" votes and both manage to skip the approval quorum , the template is deemed to be accepted which, after deducting all "no" votes, has the most "yes" votes.

Optional referendum

As one of two federal states in Germany, Hamburg (along with Bremen) knows the instrument of the facultative referendum. Citizens can get a direct vote on a law passed by parliament if sufficient signatures are submitted. In Hamburg, however, the optional referendum is limited to laws passed by the citizenry that had previously been passed in a referendum, and to the electoral law. For a successful facultative referendum in Hamburg, 2.5% (approx. 32,000) of those eligible to vote must sign within three months of the decision being taken. If it is successful and the Hamburg citizenship does not withdraw the legislative resolution, a referendum on the change in the law must be carried out within four months.

Individual people's legislative process

Since the reintroduction of the people's legislation in Hamburg in 1996, there have been a whole series of popular initiatives and referendums, seven of which were put to the vote in a referendum by the population by 2011. A further eight initiatives and requests were taken over by the Hamburg citizenship either in the same way or in a compromise solution between Parliament and the initiators before a vote was taken. The abbreviations given after the procedures (e.g. VI01) refer to the corresponding entry in the tables in the section below .

Direct Democracy Initiatives

The design of direct democracy itself was the first topic that was taken up in Hamburg by the people's legislation. A large number of these initiatives were brought into being by the association Mehr Demokratie - whose purpose is to expand and promote direct democracy in Germany - in alliance with other organizations. In part, these initiatives were direct reactions to resolutions by the Hamburg Parliament to reform the direct democratic regulations in the state.

The two first popular initiatives launched in Hamburg (VI01 and VI02) aimed to facilitate direct democracy at the state level and to introduce citizens' petitions and referendums in Hamburg. Both were successful and finally reached a referendum on September 27, 1998 - the day of the federal election. While the demand for the introduction of referendums and referendums as a simple statutory regulation was accepted with 74.1% and 66.7% voter turnout, the alleviation of the people's legislation aimed at changing the state constitution failed with the same voter turnout and only slightly lower approval with 73.2% at the quorum .

The next initiative (VI04) to expand the people's legislation was taken in 2000 by the party Derende Punkt . However, it failed due to a lack of signatures and the party dissolved in the same year. In the same way, a popular initiative (VI07) by the Statt party to expand direct democracy in Hamburg failed the following year .

After the CDU in the state elections of 2004 , the absolute majority won the seats, they announced a reform of popular legislation that ultimately became effective at the beginning of 2005. The CDU used its parliamentary majority to change the Voting Act so that popular initiatives and petitions could only be supported by registration. The previously valid free collection , i.e. the possibility of signing up on a list of supporters on the street, has been abolished. The constitutional basis of the people's legislation in Hamburg remained untouched, however, since this would have required a two-thirds majority and all other parties represented in the citizenship were against a reform of direct democracy in Hamburg. Together with alliance partners, the association Mehr Demokratie launched a popular initiative (VI18) at the end of 2004 with the title »Save the referendum« to withdraw the legal reform. Only one month later he initiated a second popular initiative (VI19) entitled "Hamburg strengthens the referendum", which called for the expansion of popular legislation in the state constitution through the introduction of an optional referendum. After the initiative "Save the referendum" was very successfully accepted with 100,062 signatures in February / March 2007, the Hamburg CDU parliamentary group decided on March 26, 2007 to accept the referendum in the citizenry so that the referendum was canceled. The second request was finally put to the vote on October 14, 2007 and failed to meet the required quorum with 75.9% approval and 39.1% participation in the vote.

In the same year, Mehr Demokratie e. V. launched another popular initiative in Hamburg with the title "For fair and binding referendums" (VI22). The core demands of the previous initiative were supplemented by demands to lower the voting quorum or, if possible, to make the combination of votes with elections binding. After the CDU had lost an absolute majority in the aftermath of the 2008 general election and a coalition with the GAL had formed, a compromise solution emerged. On December 10, 2008, the Hamburg citizenship finally passed a constitutional amendment that included the core demands of the previous popular initiatives - introduction of an optional referendum in Hamburg, mandatory amalgamation of voting and election days, lowering of the voting quorums.

Suffrage initiatives

→ Main article : Suffrage (Hamburg)

In 2001 the association Mehr Bürgerrechte (later: Mehr Demokratie eV) started a successful popular initiative (VI06) to change Hamburg's electoral law. The aim was to give the citizens more influence on the composition of the Hamburg citizenship. Until then, voters in Hamburg could only give one vote for one party . On the one hand, the popular initiative provided for the introduction of multi-mandate constituencies and, on the other hand, a personalized proportional representation, in which the voters should be able to distribute up to five votes directly to individual candidates in their constituency or on the state list . Of the 121 members of the citizenship, 71 would have entered parliament from the constituencies and 50 via the state list.

After the referendum (VB04) was not accepted by the citizens, the referendum took place on June 13, 2004, at the same time as the European Parliament elections. When voting, the voters were presented with two bills for changing Hamburg's electoral law : one by the registered association Mehr Bürgerrechte and another draft by the Hamburg citizenship. The submission of the citizenship parties "Citizen-Friendly Democracy - 50 constituencies for Hamburg" did not achieve the required quorum with 197,524 votes in favor (16.3%, against: 169,446) and was therefore unsuccessful. The draft of the association Mehr Bürgerrechte "More civil rights - a new right to vote for Hamburg" was successful with 256,507 votes in favor (21.1% of those eligible to vote) to 129,035 against. A new electoral law was passed through the referendum, which came into force in 2004.

At the end of 2006, the Hamburg citizenship, with the votes of the CDU, which had an absolute majority, changed parts of the electoral law adopted in the referendum before it was even applied. This process was a novelty insofar as it was the first time in the history of the FRG that the electoral law of a federal state was not changed by the consensus of all parties represented in parliament and at the same time an existing electoral law was reformed before it was first applied. As a result, both the SPD , the GAL and the association Mehr Bürgerrechte (Mehr Bürgerrechte) took legal action against this step in the Hamburg Constitutional Court ; the court finally found the plaintiffs right in parts.

In order to change the changes in the electoral rights of the CDU majority that were not objected to by the constitutional court, the association launched another popular initiative (VI23) in 2008. For the popular initiative (VB11), which was also successful, a compromise was negotiated in 2009 with the Senate, which has meanwhile been formed by the CDU and GAL, and was accepted by the citizens.

Privatization initiatives

Privatization of the state's own hospital operations: "Health is not a commodity"

The popular initiative »Health is not a commodity« (VI10), launched in 2002, aimed to prevent the planned sale of the Landesbetrieb Hospitals (LBK) . At the referendum on February 29, 2004, the majority of those who voted (76.8 percent), with a participation of 64.9 percent, were against a sale. However, the initiative was not based on a draft law, but merely a "recommendation" to the Senate.

Despite this vote, the Hamburg Senate sold the state operations to Asklepios Kliniken in 2007 . The Hamburg Constitutional Court ruled on December 15, 2004 that the sale was legal even if the referendum turned out to be the opposite.

Remunicipalisation of the energy networks: "Our Hamburg - Our network"

The popular initiative Our Hamburg - Our Network started on July 5, 2010. The aim is to remunicipalise the energy networks and establish “real” municipal utilities, that is, a municipal utility with its own energy networks, democratically controlled. The initiative is supported by over 30 alliance partners, including the BUND Hamburg, the Hamburg consumer center , churches and associations from the renewable energy sector. The Association of Taxpayers Hamburg e. V. initially supported the initiative, but later joined the opponents of the nationalization of the energy networks. The central demand of the initiative is the withdrawal of the distribution networks for electricity , gas and district heating to 100 percent in order to enable a switch to a decentralized and efficient energy supply from renewable energies with democratic control of these infrastructures. As a financial aid for remunicipalised energy networks in Hamburg, EnergieNetz Hamburg eG , which was founded in April 2013, will apply directly or indirectly for the energy network concessions that are available .

After the Hamburg citizenship had not adopted the goals of the popular initiative in December 2010, our Hamburg –– our network reported the referendum to the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City on January 20, 2011 in due form and in due time. In the period from 1. – 21. June 2011, with around 116,000 copies, more than double the required signatures were collected. This is how the referendum came about.

At the request of the initiative Unser Hamburg - our network , a referendum took place on September 22nd - the day of the 2013 federal election .

The voting text for the referendum read:

“The Senate and the City Council are taking all necessary and permissible steps on time to fully take over the Hamburg electricity, district heating and gas pipeline networks in 2015 again. The binding goal is a socially just, climate-friendly and democratically controlled energy supply from renewable energies. "

- Voting text, presented to the referendum on September 22, 2013

Opponents of the reversal of existing contracts - including an unlimited district heating concession - with Vattenfall and complete remunicipalisation of the Hamburg energy networks were, in addition to the large electricity companies, SPD party members, led by Mayor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the independent CDU member of parliament Walter Scheuerl , with his Unser Hamburg - good network initiative and the FDP. A broad alliance of business organizations also spoke out against a full buyback, including the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, the Hamburg Chamber of Crafts and the Hamburg Industry Association.

After initially still strong approval of remunicipalisation of the energy networks of 64 percent in February 2013, approval fell to 58 percent in June 2013 and to polls with a wafer-thin majority for opponents of remunicipalisation a few days before the referendum. In the vote on the day of the 2013 Bundestag elections, 1,293,102 people entitled to vote, based on the final official result, out of 14,968 invalid votes, 444,352 (50.9 percent) were in favor and 428,980 (49.1 percent) against the submission of the full repurchase Energienetz organized a popular initiative “Our Hamburg - our network”. The proposal is thus accepted.

Education reform initiatives

Withdrawal of the school reforms passed: "We want to learn"

See also : School reform in Hamburg

The popular initiative “We want to learn” (VI24) dealt with one aspect of the school reforms previously decided by the black-green Senate, namely the question of whether the six-year primary school should replace the previous four-year elementary school , and whether it should still do so Parents' existing right to choose a secondary school after class 4 is canceled.

The initiators essentially pointed out that it is not the type of school, but the individual learning relationship that determines success and equity in the education system. Therefore, the abolition of primary schools and the introduction of primary schools are superfluous. The enormous costs of the restructuring of around 500 million euros should rather be spent on better equipping the existing schools. In addition, the schools are still busy with other serious reforms, for example the introduction of the shortened Abitur ( G8 ) and the amalgamation of all secondary schools with the exception of the grammar school to form district schools . Only when these reforms have been processed and evaluated can further reforms be decided. In particular, the initiators also pointed out that the educational results in Berlin , where the six-year elementary school had already been introduced, were extremely poorly documented, whereas the federal states leading in educational comparisons, particularly Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg , are sticking to the four-year elementary school.

The opponents of the initiative originally wanted to abolish parental suffrage entirely, but now advocate a parental suffrage after class 6. For them, it is crucial that no one is given the opportunity to switch to grammar school after class 4, because this would split society. The initiative is accused of so-called educational egoism, because in reality it does not strive for a more effective school structure, but mainly only strives for better education for high school students. But this increases the division in society. Instead of this division, the primary school should help to even out socially determined educational differences by concentrating on the support of the underperforming students.

The popular initiative and referendum were successful, so that on July 18, 2010 a referendum was held. Based on the eligible voters in the previous state election (1,251,686 people), at least 247,335 yes-votes (20%) were required for a successful referendum. In addition to the submission of the “We want to learn” initiative, a submission by the citizens was put to the vote. 492,057 votes were cast, which corresponds to 39.3% of the eligible voters. 276,034 voted for the proposal, 200,093 against. 218,065 people voted in favor of the citizenship proposal, 260,989 voted against. The submission of the initiative was thus successful.

Table overview

The following parts of this section seem since September 2010 is out of date to be : Tabular overview
Please help with to the missing information research and insert .

The following is a tabular overview of all popular legislative procedures carried out in Hamburg since 1996, sorted by type of procedure. Since the administration in Hamburg stops counting signatures for popular initiatives and referendums as soon as the specified quorum has been reached, there are no official numbers of the signatures submitted and found to be valid.

See also

• Direct democracy
• People's legislation
• Direct democracy in Hamburg

Web links

• Hamburg strengthens the referendum at hamburgwiki.de ( Memento from June 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
• Hamburg law on popular initiatives, referendums and referendums of June 20, 1996 HmbGVBl. 1996, p. 136 (Referendum Act - VAbstG)
• More democracy e. V., Hamburg regional association
• Initiative Save the referendum with information on the two popular initiatives

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bernhard Studt and Hans Wilhelm Olsen: Hamburg. The story of a city. Hamburg 1951, p. 191.
2. ↑ https://hh.mehr-demokratie.de
3. ↑ Printed matter of the Hamburg citizenship. Drs. 15/1473.
4. ↑ Articles 48 and 50 of the Constitution of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
5. ↑ Law on popular initiatives, referendums and referendums of June 20, 1996
6. ↑ State Electoral Office Hamburg - referendums , accessed on March 6, 2016.
7. ↑ Article in the evening paper on the sale of clinics
8. ↑ Our Hamburg - our network. February 3, 2011
9. ↑ Taxpayers' Association supports buyback of the networks on November 5th, 2010
10. ^ Association of Taxpayers Hamburg, press release v. August 20, 2013 [1]
11. ↑ Energy networks belong in the hands of the citizen, Hamburg found a cooperative. In: Weser-Kurier of May 4, 2013 (PDF; 182 kB)
12. ↑ Gunpowder smoke over the metropolises, ZfK In: newspaper for communal economy of June 10, 2013. (PDF; 737 kB)
13. ^ Buyback of the energy networks In: taz of May 3, 2013.
14. ↑ Homepage of the Hamburg Consumer Center ( Memento of the original from 23 August 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 8, 2011. 
15. ^ The almost forgotten referendum in Hamburg, Hamburger Abendblatt from June 15, 2013
16. ^ [2] In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 1, 2013.
17. ↑ Voting text referendum
18. ↑ Die Welt, January 31, 2013: [3]
19. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
20. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt from June 13, 2013
21. ↑ [4] (PDF)
22. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
23. ^ [5] In: Hamburger Abendblatt from February 9, 2013
24. ↑ [6] In: Hamburger Abendblatt from June 27, 2013.
25. ↑ [7] In: Hamburger Abendblatt from September 16, 2013.
26. ↑ Statistical Office for Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein: Final result of the referendum on energy networks [8]
27. ↑ 492,057 votes cast, referendum was successful hamburg.de from July 18, 2010 , accessed on August 22, 2010
28. ↑ Overview of referendums in Hamburg since 1997. (No longer available online.) In: http://www.hamburg.de . April 24, 2018, archived from the original on May 25, 2018 ; accessed on May 25, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
29. ↑ The quorum refers to the number of persons entitled to vote in the previous state election.
30. ↑ The citizenry submitted a counter-proposal to the vote, which was defeated by 60.0% yes-votes in a direct comparison to the proposal of the initiative and also failed due to the quorum.
31. ↑ The citizenry submitted a counter-proposal to the vote, which was subject to the initiative's proposal with 59.6% yes-votes in a direct comparison.
32. ↑ The citizenry put a counter-proposal to the vote, which with 53.8% yes-votes in direct comparison was defeated by the proposal of the initiative and failed due to the quorum.
33. ↑ The citizenry submitted a counter-proposal to the vote, which with 45.5% yes-votes in direct comparison was defeated by the proposal of the initiative and failed due to the quorum.

Please note the information on legal issues!