Grüne on democracy and the state

The Greens want core public services, including hospitals, to be run by municipalities. A remunicipalization fund is meant to help financially weak municipalities in particular bring such services back under public ownership. The platform justifies this with democratic oversight and service quality.

Towns and cities should run important services themselves. These include power supply and hospitals. The Greens want to set up a fund for this. Poor towns can apply for money from it. Then they can buy services back from private companies.

Municipalities are to get more room to engage in business activity when it serves public services and sustainable development. Towns that want to secure their power supply through their own utilities or take hospitals back into public ownership are to receive financial help as well. Municipalities can apply to the planned fund, which is aimed mainly at those with weak finances. In the party's view, these services should not be subject to the profit motive.

The Greens want to create at least one more non-religious public holiday in Lower Saxony, since the state has fewer holidays than many other German states. The platform names March 8, May 8 and May 9 as possible dates.

Lower Saxony has fewer public holidays than many other states. The Greens want at least one new holiday. It should not be a church holiday. Options are Women's Day, the day World War II ended, or Europe Day.

The platform suggests International Women's Day on March 8 as a symbol of equal rights, May 8 as the day the war and the Nazi dictatorship ended, and May 9 as Europe Day. In addition, the holiday law should better reflect the diversity of religious denominations. The Greens want to hold a debate on the choice over the coming years.

The Greens want to lower the voting age to 14 and write children's rights into the state constitution. According to the platform, too many decisions are made without children and at their expense.

The Greens want young people to vote from age 14. Children's rights should be written in the state constitution. Children should also have more say in their town. New laws should be checked for what they mean for children.

Political participation of children and young people is to be laid down as a municipal duty in the state's local government law. Locally, they should have a say wherever they are affected, such as on playgrounds or routes to school. All proposed laws should in future be checked for their effects on young people. Children and young people are to be involved in legislative debates in an age-appropriate way, with dedicated structures created for this.

The Greens want to simplify access to justice, keep all court locations and digitize the judiciary. Online hearings and digital procedures for small claims are to become possible.

The Greens want people to get justice more easily. All courts in the state should stay open. The courts should work digitally. Hearings should also be possible online. People should be able to sue for small sums easily online.

Citizen services at local courts and legal advice aid are to be expanded. Digital work in the courtroom and office is to become standard, with high security standards and protections for staff. This involves training for judges, better technology and more online modules. Artificial intelligence and legal tech are to be used, for instance to ease the load in mass proceedings; in the party's view, such technology may only prepare or support judicial decisions.

Following Berlin's example, the Greens want to create an on-call judge service that can be reached at any time, for instance for deportations and house searches. In addition, courts are to cooperate more closely, and the specialized prosecutors' offices are to be reviewed and reorganized.

The Greens want judges to be reachable day and night. This matters for deportations or searches of homes. Courts should work together better. The state should check where special prosecutors' offices make sense.

The on-call service is meant for official measures that need an immediate decision by a judge. Local and regional courts are to exchange more through technical and organizational steps so they can handle specialized and large cases on time. The platform sees specialized prosecutors' offices as a suitable way to ease the workload, but not in every field. They must not come at the expense of prosecuting ordinary crime, so the prosecutors' offices are to be evaluated and an overall plan drawn up. Court decisions should always be made by a human being.

The Greens want to recruit more and more diverse new staff for the justice system, including more lawyers with a migration background. Access to judgeships should not depend on exam grades alone, and conditions for staff in the courts and prisons are to improve.

Many people in the justice system will retire soon. The Greens want to win new staff. More people with immigrant roots should become judges. Not only the exam grade should count. Prison staff should get better pay.

The plan includes targeted recruitment, new paths for career changers and more weight for work experience when appointing judges. Pay and staffing for court officers and prison staff are to follow actual need, along with a training drive for the prison service. Serving as a lay judge is to fit better with childcare, caring for relatives and self-employment, and opponents of the constitution are to be kept out of that role. Part-time legal traineeships are to be rolled out quickly statewide, and the trainee allowance will be reviewed. Law studies are to be reformed, with a digital exam and less mental pressure. The state intends to keep taking part in the federal-state Pakt für den Rechtsstaat (pact for the rule of law).

The Greens aim to separate church and state financially and institutionally and to end the state's regular payments to the churches through a final settlement. The ban on dancing on certain Christian holidays and the rule that urns must be buried in cemeteries are to go, while treaties with Islamic religious communities are to be concluded.

The Greens want to separate church and state more. The state should end its regular payments to the churches. The ban on dancing on some holidays should go. Urns would no longer have to go to a cemetery. There should be agreements with Islamic communities.

For daycare centers, hospitals and nursing homes, people everywhere are to have a choice between church-run and non-church facilities. In some places this would require new public facilities, which a needs assessment is to clarify. Environmentally friendly forms of burial are to become possible in cemeteries. Treaties, especially with Islamic religious communities, are to settle matters such as how imams and Muslim religion teachers are trained at public universities. The platform points to equal treatment of religions and to the aim that no one be disadvantaged because of their faith.

The Greens want a state law on promoting democracy that gives civil society initiatives lasting support. The platform argues that a democracy can only withstand right-wing extremism and conspiracy narratives through ongoing education and awareness work.

The Greens want a new law for Lower Saxony. It should help groups that work for democracy. These groups should get money for the long term. The domestic intelligence agency should not check them without a reason.

The law is meant to complement the federal government's planned democracy promotion law and to coordinate state and federal funding. The party wants to work closely with large, established institutions as well as small initiatives. Exit programs for people leaving right-wing extremist or conspiracy-minded scenes are to receive broad funding. The party rejects blanket suspicion of initiatives working against right-wing extremism and opposes screening by the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) without specific cause.

The Greens want a transparency law that gives everyone access to official information held by public bodies. The platform sees this as a precondition for the public to be able to scrutinize government action.

Public offices hold a lot of information. The Greens want a transparency law. Then everyone can get this information. Public offices should also share more information on their own.

According to the platform, Lower Saxony is one of the last states without a freedom of information law, for which the party blames the SPD and CDU. The planned law is meant to go further than such a freedom of information law. Public bodies are to be required as a rule to inform the public proactively and better about important developments.

The Greens want to improve conditions for volunteer work through a volunteering strategy. Initiatives and associations are to get support structures and reliably funded paid staff. The platform argues that a democratic society depends on volunteers.

Many people in Lower Saxony volunteer. The Greens want to make their work easier. Clubs and groups should get paid staff to help them. There should be more places in volunteer service programs. Volunteers should get benefits, such as cheaper public transit.

People of all ages and backgrounds are to be encouraged to get involved, with special support and visibility for volunteers with a migration background. Association offices and volunteer agencies are to receive permanent funding. So-called funding scouts are to help volunteers apply for grants. Volunteer service programs are to grow in all areas. As recognition, the platform lists volunteer cards, training and discounted use of public services such as local transit.

The Greens want cities, towns and counties to receive enough money for their tasks and want the state to represent their interests at the federal level. State agencies are to advise municipalities in a more targeted way on the path to climate neutrality.

Cities and towns have many tasks. The Greens want them to get enough money for this. The state should speak up for them with the federal government. State experts should advise towns on climate protection.

The program sees municipalities as partners on local transit, renewable energy, housing, education and lively city centers. In the party's view, government has been cut back too far in many places, for example in public health offices, digital administration and school technology. As one cause it cites that municipalities keep getting new tasks, and it points to a falling investment rate. The Lower Saxony Climate Protection and Energy Agency (KEAN) and other state agencies are to expand their advisory work.

The Greens want to hand additional powers to municipalities and expand direct democracy at the local level. According to the platform, this strengthens people's right to decide for themselves where they live.

Towns should decide more things themselves. One example is speed limits on their streets. Citizens should also vote directly more often. This should include building plans.

The platform calls easier municipal business activity and the option of a tourism levy steps in the right direction. It wants to add powers over speed limits and more say on construction projects. The tools of direct democracy are to be developed further, for example by allowing local referendums on land-use planning as well.

The Greens want to reverse the rule adopted by the SPD and CDU for filling committees in local councils. The D'Hondt method would be replaced by one that takes smaller groups into account more fairly.

Local councils have committees. Seats there are shared out by a counting rule. Today's rule helps large groups. The Greens want a rule that is fairer to small groups too.

According to the platform, the SPD and CDU changed the allocation procedure mainly to their own advantage. It says the D'Hondt method favors large council groups above all. It would be replaced by a method that mirrors the makeup of municipal and county councils more closely in their committees.

The Greens want considerably more people from disadvantaged groups to sit on local councils. At the same time, local politicians should be better protected against threats, and holding a seat should be easier to combine with family life.

Local councils should include more different kinds of people. One example is people with a migration background. The Greens want to protect local politicians better from threats. Someone who is sick or has a baby should be able to have a stand-in.

Municipalities are encouraged to draw up diversity action plans and consult existing integration and disability advisory boards. Structures for political participation are planned for people with a migration background. Against insults and attacks, the platform foresees central counseling services and a dedicated contact person at the state criminal police office; it welcomes better protection of home addresses. The Greens will examine substitution rules under which the next person on the list temporarily takes over with voting rights during illness, time abroad or parental leave. Shared mandates are also considered possible.

The Greens want to support cities and towns that work together more closely, including across state and national borders. According to the platform, this relieves local administrations and makes better use of regional opportunities.

Towns should work together more. This also applies across borders. The Greens want to support this with money and help. Then local offices have less work.

The platform points to existing cooperation in energy supply, local public transit, administrative tasks, and cultural and social facilities. In addition, model regions are to develop environmentally friendly logistics concepts for retail and skilled trades, to ease the burden on the environment, infrastructure and land. Cooperation should grow locally, with the state backing creative initiatives and digital solutions.

The Greens want to attract more staff to the administration through better pay, flexible working models and easier lateral entry. The platform cites the shortage of skilled workers and the retirement of the baby-boom generation as the reason.

The state lacks skilled workers in its offices. The Greens want to make these jobs more attractive. This includes good pay and working from home. People from other jobs should also find it easier to join.

Pay structures are to be reviewed with the aim of compensation that is attractive compared with other states; for technical jobs, solutions and better promotion paths will be sought with municipalities and unions. The plan includes larger recruitment advertising budgets, more training in civil-servant status and more practical time during training. Skills of people with a migration background should count more in hiring, and women are to be actively promoted into leadership roles. Working from home, working-time accounts, job sharing and sabbaticals should be available more often. Training is to strengthen gender and diversity skills, and more experts from Lower Saxony are to be seconded to EU and international institutions.