Will it really be possible to credibly distance oneself from the Greens? Across Germany, last year the Greens fell in number for the first time in a long time, by 0.36 percent – and yes: there were also resignations, not just deaths. But membership in the party is not the issue for the city councilors in Bad Reichenhall, but membership in the green council group. A couple who ran for the Greens in 2020 cannot now simply turn to the citizens’ list, when they are definitely still Greens at heart! This was decided by a clear majority in the Reichenhall city council, made up of factions that the couple expressly did not want to join.
These factions did not want to be able to recognize a credible distancing between the couple and the Greens, despite the differences over Corona and even though the woman left the party a while ago and the man only came onto the council later as a successor and has never been a member of the Green faction. The citizens’ list then sued against the majority decision – and the Munich Administrative Court has now recognized that the two of them have turned away from their previous electorate. But from the judge’s point of view, that doesn’t really matter that much.
It was also clear to them what was important to the parties to the dispute, namely the distribution of seats in the committees. This is determined by the strength of the faction, and only by that. The judges decided and referred to the principle of free mandate. In essence, this also applies locally and means that those elected are not obliged to a party, but only to their conscience. So they can be of their own opinion and do not have to follow their former party and certainly not the assumptions of their political opponents.
Specifically, the judges temporarily ordered three committees to be filled. The Citizens’ List, whose parliamentary group has now grown to five members, will each receive an additional seat – and because of the calculation method, this will be at the expense of the Free Voters and not at the expense of the Greens who have left. But that wouldn’t have upset the others so much.