FDP on democracy and the state

The FDP wants to give municipalities more responsibility of their own and repeal decrees that oblige them to raise taxes. The state is to cover all costs of tasks it assigns, and municipal revenue sharing is to be revised.

Cities and towns should decide more for themselves. The state should no longer force them to raise taxes. If the state gives towns tasks, it should pay all the costs. Unnecessary rules should go.

Revenue sharing is to be adjusted mainly for funds for public transit, hospitals and refugees. A review of tasks is to remove unnecessary laws and simplify rules so that small administrations can also carry them out. The FDP prefers reliable municipal investment in schools, daycare centers, sports facilities and transport routes to short-term stimulus programs. Cooperation among towns, cities and counties is to be promoted and democratically overseen through inter-municipal parliamentary assemblies.

The FDP wants an assembly law with as little state interference as possible. It rejects precautionary video recording and undercover officers at demonstrations as long as there is no danger. At the same time it wants to examine whether assemblies at certain locations can be barred by law.

People are allowed to demonstrate. The FDP wants the state to hold back. Police should not film protests without a reason. They should not send undercover officers either. But the FDP may want to ban protests on highways.

In the FDP's view, free assemblies and debate strengthen the state. Assembly law should also respect the rights of third parties; harassing disruptions and lasting dangers to others are not protected, the party says. The review of possible legal limits concerns places where, in the party's view, assemblies always seriously endanger others. It names highways and the area directly in front of pregnancy counseling centers.

The FDP wants to keep the state of Hesse attractive as an employer and bring civil servants' pay in line with the Federal Constitutional Court's requirements. At the same time, performance-based pay elements are to be strengthened and the state's tasks critically reviewed.

The state of Hesse needs good skilled workers. The FDP wants to pay civil servants as the highest court requires. People who perform well should get more. Pay should keep up with pay in private companies.

Pay is to be at least 15 percent above the level of basic income support. Both contract employees and civil servants should share in general wage growth. The FDP wants to examine whether pay structures still match those outside public service. The senior service in particular is to become more flexible and financially appealing so the state can compete with companies, for example for IT specialists.

The FDP wants to give more support to cooperation between municipalities and reward voluntary mergers financially. In the future this should also apply to counties and independent cities, whose residents would vote on it in a county referendum.

Towns can work together or merge. The FDP wants to support this with money. This should also apply to counties. Nobody should be forced. People in the county should be able to vote on it.

As incentives, the platform names taking over old debts and a rule that savings stay with the merged municipalities within the municipal fiscal equalization system. Mergers remain voluntary as a matter of principle. The county referendum is to mirror the procedure that already exists for municipalities.

The FDP wants the state to simplify and support cooperation among towns and municipalities. Neighboring centers are to work together permanently so they can offset each other's weaknesses.

Towns should work together more. The state should help them do this. Neighboring towns should become fixed partners. Then one town can help out the other.

The program lists health care, running sports facilities, designating residential and commercial zones, and local public transit as areas for fixed cooperation. The system of Mittelzentren (mid-sized regional centers) is to be differentiated, because such towns serve larger areas in rural regions than in the Rhine-Main area. In addition, the municipal code is to be changed so that local councils and executive boards can also pass resolutions digitally. Council members are to be given devices and software for this.

The FDP wants to reform the state election law so that the parliament reliably has no more than 110 members. This is meant to keep the parliament workable and avoid unnecessary costs for taxpayers.

The state parliament should get smaller. It should have 110 members at most. The FDP says the parliament will work better this way. It will also cost less tax money.

The plan calls for 45 electoral districts and therefore 45 directly elected seats. Another 65 seats would be filled from party lists. According to the program, this reduces the number of overhang seats and the likelihood that the parliament grows.

The FDP wants young people to be able to vote from age 16 in Hesse's state and local elections. It argues that young people bear the consequences of today's policies the most.

Young people should be allowed to vote at 16. This should apply to state elections and local elections in Hesse. The FDP says today's politics affects young people the most.

The change concerns the right to cast a vote, not the right to run for office. The program names pension, fiscal, digital and climate policy as areas whose effects fall mainly on young and future generations. The FDP also wants to protect mail-in voting against manipulation: election offices would be allowed to send a designated person the ballots of no more than four eligible voters.

The FDP wants to make formal access to local and statewide referendums easier. It considers the quorums a local referendum must meet to succeed appropriate, and wants to keep parliamentary democracy as the main form of decision-making.

Citizens should be able to start a vote more easily. There should be less paperwork for this. The number of votes needed to win should stay the same. Elected politicians should still make most decisions themselves.

Formal requirements are to be simplified and deadlines made fair so that local referendums do not fail during preparation. The FDP does not want to change the success quorums, arguing that direct decisions also need broad support among the population. Elected representatives should not regularly hand off responsibility to yes-or-no votes.

The FDP wants to limit the Hessian Ministerpräsident (state premier) to two full legislative terms in order to safeguard the state's capacity for reform. In addition, prospective ministers are to face a public hearing in the state parliament before being appointed.

The state premier should stay in office for two terms at most. The FDP says this keeps the state open to new ideas. New ministers should answer questions in parliament first. This should happen in public.

The hearings would be held by the parliamentary committees responsible for the relevant policy area. Based on them, the committees would issue an opinion on the candidates' suitability before the appointment. The FDP ties this to the goal of ensuring the integrity and performance of the state government.

The FDP wants to pay judges, prosecutors and other court staff at a level that lets Hesse compete with other states and professions. A new recruitment strategy is meant to end what the platform describes as years of overload in the justice system.

The FDP says: Courts in Hesse do not have enough staff. So the staff should get better pay. The work should also become more attractive. Then more people should want to work at the courts.

The pay demand covers both judges and non-judicial staff, and prior work experience is to count when people are hired and graded. The "Task-Force Mutterschutz" (a team covering maternity-leave absences) is to be extended to all court branches, and a pool of positions is to fill staffing gaps. As incentives the platform lists remote work, job sharing, lifetime working-time accounts for judges too, sabbaticals and flexible retirement up to age 70. It also calls for a talent pool of graduates, early job postings and easier lateral entry. Central court locations are to get further specialized jurisdictions where needed, for example in IT law.

The FDP wants to digitize Hesse's justice system quickly and aims for courtrooms without paper files. In the platform's view, the state government has let the system fall behind. The judiciary is also to present its work in a more open and understandable way.

The FDP wants digital courts. There should be no more paper files. Citizens and lawyers should be able to write to the court digitally. Court rulings should be available on the internet.

The plan includes central IT support and computer specialists at all large court locations, who would also handle IT security. The courts are to use the special electronic lawyers' mailbox (beA) consistently and without barriers. Witness hearings and court sessions could take place by video in suitable cases, and land register files are to become fully electronic. At the federal level, Hesse is to push for an online database of all court decisions and a central justice portal for people seeking legal protection. The platform also names the paperless office as a goal for notaries.

The FDP wants to expand the existing English-language chamber for commercial matters at the Frankfurt Regional Court into a full "Commercial Court." This is meant to make Frankfurt more attractive internationally as a place to litigate.

Frankfurt already has a court chamber for trade cases in English. The FDP wants to make this bigger. Companies from other countries should be able to settle disputes there. This should make Frankfurt more important.

The platform points to the Commercial Courts in Stuttgart and Mannheim as models. A civil chamber for business cases would hear proceedings in English with a full panel of judges and accept documents in English. A specialized appeals panel for these cases is to be created at the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court.

The FDP wants to change Hesse's Freedom of Information Act so that cities and municipalities also have to provide information. It also wants to make it possible to vote online in elections and referendums.

The FDP wants this: Cities and towns must also give information to citizens. A law should be changed for this. People should also be able to vote online. The vote must be secure.

Online voting is to comply with the principle that elections must be publicly verifiable and is to rule out manipulation. Signatures in support of a Volksbegehren (citizens' petition for a referendum) are also to be collectable online. The FDP links this to a commitment to digitization in line with democratic principles.

The FDP wants to involve children and young people more in politics by creating local youth parliaments with the right to submit proposals. It also favors children's rights in the Hessian constitution and wants to strengthen youth work outside school.

Young people should have more say in politics. The FDP wants youth parliaments in towns and cities. These should be allowed to bring their own proposals. Children's rights should be in the constitution of Hesse. The FDP also wants to strengthen youth work.

Where a youth parliament is not feasible, bodies such as children's and youth councils should involve young people directly in decisions and planning that affect them. Youth education outside school is to be strengthened as a further pillar of education. The FDP supports statutory leave for volunteers in youth work and wants to examine how this commitment can be given additional recognition in school and vocational training. According to the platform, children's rights in the state constitution give the welfare of the child and the right to education a visible status.

The FDP wants citizens to have a greater say in political decisions and would change the law to allow it. Digital tools are meant to expand existing forms of participation, and electronic voting should become possible.

The FDP wants citizens to have more of a say. Laws should be changed for this. People should be able to take part online. Voting online should also become possible.

The platform sees digitalization as opening up new ways to participate that go beyond traditional procedures. The legal framework would be adjusted for this. The FDP also counts forms of electronic voting (e-voting) among them.

The FDP wants a transparency law modeled on Hamburg's that requires public authorities to publish information proactively. Administrative data that does not relate to individuals should be freely available.

The FDP wants a new law for more openness. Public offices should publish information on their own. Hamburg already has such a law. Data that is not about people should be free for everyone.

Administrative data that does not concern individuals, or that has been anonymized or pseudonymized, would be made freely available. Public digital projects would be developed as open source unless security interests stand in the way. The FDP justifies this with freedom of information and the view that open data fosters innovation.