“We very much welcome the ruling from Karlsruhe,” said the President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, on the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on the ZDF State Treaty (ZDF-StV) on Tuesday. “We now expect the representatives of the federal states to adequately reflect the ideological plurality in Germany in the new draft of the ZDF State Treaty. In our view, any state broadcasting treaty that does not implement the equal treatment of religions and world views prescribed by our Basic Law is unconstitutional.” On Tuesday, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the ZDF State Treaty does not sufficiently comply with the principle of ensuring diversity and consistently limiting the proportion of state and state-affiliated members on the supervisory boards, as required by the fundamental right to freedom of broadcasting. The federal states are now obliged to adopt a new constitutional regulation by June 30, 2015. Among other things, the proportion of state and state-related persons on the ZDF Television Board must be reduced to one third. Members of the government and high-ranking representatives of the executive branch must “not have any decisive influence” so that the diversity of existing opinions in broadcasting is expressed as broadly and fully as possible. “The composition of the collegial bodies must be geared towards bringing together people with the widest possible range of perspectives and horizons of experience from all areas of the community,” the Senate explained in the grounds for the ruling. It goes on to say: “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.” Frieder Otto Wolf said that the statements of the Federal Constitutional Court support the equal treatment of religious and ideological communities prescribed by the Basic Law in Article 140 in conjunction with 137 WRV para. 7. “The fact that, in addition to members of the Christian churches and the Jewish community in Germany, there are also other religious and non-religious ideological communities in society must also be taken into account in state broadcasting agreements. Today’s ideological plurality is not sufficiently respected by the existing regulations for public broadcasting, not only in the case of the ZDF State Treaty. Non-religious people are clearly disadvantaged, and the growing proportion of non-denominational people and people of other faiths is currently severely neglected.” The current ZDF constitution stipulates that the 77-member Television Council should consist of two representatives each from the Protestant Church in Germany and the Catholic Church as well as one representative from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and that one representative from each of the church welfare organizations should also be appointed to the ZDF Television Council. There are comparable deficits in the SWR State Treaty, which only considers “churches and other religious communities” in the relevant sections, although the respective state constitutions also stipulate equal treatment of religious and ideological communities. “All regulations that determine the structure of public service broadcasting must be based on the statements now made by the Federal Constitutional Court,” emphasized Frieder Otto Wolf.
He referred to a resolution adopted by the European Parliament at the end of February on the “Situation of fundamental rights in the European Union” (2013/2078(INI)), which calls on the member states to implement the consistent equal treatment of religious and non-religious people. “The elimination of discrimination against people of no religious denomination in Germany is also urgently needed in public service broadcasting so that the existing plurality is finally taken into account.”
