BSW on democracy and the state

The BSW wants to lower the hurdles for local citizens' initiatives and referendums and make their results binding. Participatory budgets would be expanded.

The BSW wants people to have more say locally. Votes by citizens should need fewer signatures. The result should be binding. People should help decide more often how their town spends money.

Formal requirements and minimum thresholds would be lowered for citizens' initiatives, referendums, and petitions. The BSW wants to expand participatory budgets, which many municipalities already have. The platform argues that ignoring the will of citizens increases disillusionment with politics and that people respect outcomes more when they help decide.

The BSW wants to permanently fund and expand publicly financed legal advice centers and to broaden legal aid for advice and court costs. In the party's view, legal advice should not depend on a person's wallet.

A lawyer costs a lot of money. The BSW wants more advice centers for legal questions. The state should pay for them. They should exist mainly in rural areas. People with little money should get more help with court costs.

At the advice centers, people are to get initial expert help without paying high lawyer fees. Funding is to be made permanent and the service expanded, especially in rural areas. Knowledge about one's own rights is to be taught in school. Laws are to be reviewed to cut red tape; the party considers them too extensive and hard for laypeople to understand. The legal profession in rural areas is to be strengthened.

The BSW wants to make the judiciary more independent of politics. Public prosecutors should no longer be subject to instructions from the government, and court locations should not be closed.

Today the government can give orders to prosecutors. The BSW wants to end this. The courts should be independent of politics. Courts should stay where they are.

The party regards giving up court locations as political interference in the judiciary that must stop. In its view, the use of video technology must also not lead to rural courts being closed or merged. The binding of prosecutors to instructions from the justice ministry is to be dropped.

The BSW wants a minimum quota for East German applicants when public-sector jobs are filled, especially in the state administration. It argues that East Germans are underrepresented in leading positions in Brandenburg.

The BSW says East Germans rarely get top jobs. So it wants a minimum number. That many state jobs should go to East Germans. The rule should only apply for a limited time.

According to the platform, East Germans are not represented in Brandenburg's politics, administration, courts, universities and media in proportion to their share of the population. As examples it cites wage levels 21 percent lower in the East and poorer chances for young East Germans to pursue an academic career. The support is meant to be temporary. It should cover at least the public service, the administration, and science and culture.

The BSW rejects further job cuts in public administration and wants more staff in schools, hospitals, nursing homes and government offices. It also wants more digital administrative services, since in its view Brandenburg lags far behind.

The BSW does not want to cut jobs in public offices. It wants more staff, for example in schools and offices. Offices should handle requests faster. More things should work online.

Public services in health, education and administration should be accessible and affordable for people on low incomes too. The platform criticizes long processing times at agencies and municipal institutions. More staff are to be hired at both state and municipal bodies. The BSW sees Brandenburg among the laggards in digital administrative services and demands a change.