The draft amendment to the new ZDF State Treaty must not be passed by the federal states in its current form. The President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, pointed this out to the representatives of the parliamentary groups in the 16 state parliaments on Monday. This was prompted by recent statements made last week by the Standing Audience Conference of the Public Service Media and the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD) on the draft amendment. “The current draft does not meet the requirements formulated by the judges in the ruling on the unconstitutionality of the current ZDF State Treaty of March 25, 2014,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. The amendment presented by the state governments in December 2014 provides, among other things, for a reduction in the size of the ZDF Television Advisory Board from 77 to 60 seats. In order to comply with the Federal Constitutional Court’s requirement to reduce the influence of politics on the broadcaster’s programming, the previous twelve seats for the representatives of the “parties according to their strength ratio in the Bundestag, who are delegated by their party executive committee” have been removed. Furthermore, instead of the previous “three federal representatives delegated by the federal government”, there will only be two seats for federal representatives in future. There will still be two seats each for representatives of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in Germany as well as one seat for a representative of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. The draft amendment also provides for the state of Lower Saxony to send a representative “from the Muslim sector” to the Television Advisory Board. The LSVD and the Standing Audience Conference criticized the amendment in no uncertain terms. LSVD federal board member Henry Engels stated that it was “inconceivable to us that the LGBTI sector of society should continue to be excluded from the ZDF committees in 2015”. The historical suppression of LGBTI people from public life and their social discrimination is being “continued in an intolerable way”, the statement continued. The statement from the Standing Audience Conference also notes that there are “more non-religious citizens in Germany than Catholics or Protestants”, but that there are no logical explanations as to “why the churches and their associations are more strongly represented in the committees than the non-religious”. The statement by the Audience Conference also points out that the Federal Constitutional Court has not demanded a reduction in the number of seats and is in favour of ZDF Television Council seats for a representative of the LSVD, a representative of human rights organizations and a representative of non-denominational groups, among others. Frieder Otto Wolf said on Monday in Berlin that the Humanist Association of Germany strongly supports the demands for the inclusion of LGBTI and other civil society groups and institutions. “The civil society spectrum must be adequately represented on the ZDF Television Advisory Board. The draft amendment falls very short of this goal,” said Wolf.
He referred to the reasoning of the ruling of March 25, 2014, which stated: “The composition of the collegial bodies must be geared towards bringing together people with the most diverse perspectives and horizons of experience possible from all areas of the community.” He continued: “In addition to large associations that determine public life, smaller groups that do not have easy access to the media and perspectives that are not organized coherently must also be represented.” Wolf also emphasized that the number of seats for representatives of the non-denominational and non-religious part of the German population must be equal to the number of church representatives. “In view of the current and future denominational composition of the population, there should be at least four representatives of non-denominational and non-religious people in Germany on the ZDF Television Advisory Board,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. A smaller number of seats would contradict the equal treatment of religious and non-religious worldviews as well as the existing ideological plurality within the group of non-denominational people, he explained. In addition, other representatives of minority denominations should also be included in order to adequately reflect the religious plurality in the Federal Republic. “There are not only Christians, Jews and Muslims in Germany,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. The state parliaments must reject any amendment that does not provide for parity between non-religious and religious worldviews on the ZDF Television Advisory Board if they take the constitutional requirement of equal treatment seriously. “Non-denominational and non-religious people are not only voters but also fee-payers just as much as members of religions and therefore have the same right to be represented in the corresponding collegial bodies and programs of ZDF. This fact is part of the message of last year’s Federal Constitutional Court and must be respected by the future ZDF State Treaty,” said Wolf.
