Cover of: Erweiterungen des Kreises der Wahlberechtigten für Ausländer auf Landes- und Kommunalebene?
Kyrill-A. Schwarz

Erweiterungen des Kreises der Wahlberechtigten für Ausländer auf Landes- und Kommunalebene?

Section: Abhandlungen
Volume 138 (2013) / Issue 3, pp. 411-434 (24)
Published 09.07.2018
DOI 10.1628/000389113X13757087795916
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Summary
raph 1, sentence 3 - has to be interpreted identically on the federal, state and communal level as predetermined by the constitution. Considering that local self-government (kommunale Selbstverwaltung) constitutes execution of mediate state authority, the necessary democratic legitimacy can only be provided by Germans within the meaning of the Basic Law. Something different can not be deduced from the right of local self-government. The Basic Law does not approve a »local community« separate from the constitutive people - that would include all inhabitants, Germans and foreigners - as origin of communal democracy. The criterion of »local community« as part of the broader concept of local self-government does not support a different conclusion, as it focalizes the communal field of duties, instead of defining the communal electorate. Affairs of the local community define the sphere of influence vis-à-vis the regional authorities, however, they don't make a point with regard to the origin of democratic legitimacy. From an overall point of view democratic legitimacy should spread out from the p