Grundmandat, Bewertung des Gleichheitsgebots, Verzerrung – Fallstricke bei der Einsetzung von Untersuchungsausschüssen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Abstract

The 8th state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has 79 members in six parlia- mentary party groups, which are represented with the following numbers of seats: SPD 34, AfD 14, CDU 12, Left Party 9, Greens and FDP with 5 each . A dispute arose over the appointment of two committees of inquiry . A majority of the state parliament approved two committees with nine members – four SPD MPs and one from each of the five other parliamentary party groups – at the suggestion of the governing coalition of the SPD and the Left Party . The proposal of the CDU, Greens and FDP to set up the committees with 13 members and a 6:2:2:1:1:1 distribution of seats was rejected . The disputes brought before the State Constitutional Court by the CDU as the applicant (LVerfG 3/22 and 4/22), were unsuccessful in the ruling of February 23, 2023 . The problem areas that arose can be outlined as follows: basic mandate, assessment of the principle of equality, and dis- tortion . This is shown in the article in the form of comments on the ruling of the State Constitutional Court . At the same time, solutions for avoiding such disputes and also for their adequate assessment are presented . First and foremost, there is a quality measure for the fulfillment of the mirror image principle, which provides a quality number for every conceivable distribution of seats, regardless of the chosen allocation procedure . This allows both the fulfillment of the principle of equality to be assessed and questions of distortion of a distribution to be quantified and thus objectively considered .