Dealing with petitions

Under the Basic Constitutional Law of Germany, every citizen has the right to submit requests or petitions, individually or in association with others, to the proper authorities and to parliament. For their part, the people of Lower Saxony are making increasing use of this right of petition.

In the last electoral period, nearly 10,000 petitions concerning specific cases were presented. Petitions form a direct, living link between the population and parliament. They allow members of parliament to find out what is "bothering" people or which legislation may not be worth adopting in a particular case.

The State Parliament itself is responsible for processing requests and petitions addressed to it, and it refers to the appropriate petitions committee according to the rules of procedure to help prepare its decisions. In autonomous matters which are the business of the local authorities, rural districts and other institutions in public law, supervision by the Land government and hence also monitoring by the State Parliament is limited to a legal check.

For reasons of constitutional law, the courts are not subject to State Parliament control, and the State Parliament is therefore not permitted to intervene in legal proceedings. Petitions are thus no substitute for possible appeals.