Committees
In each electoral term, the Bundestag sets up a number ofpermanent committees. Broadly speaking, in organizational terms the committees are a mirror image of the Government: for each ministry the Bundestag establishes a specialized committee. There are a number of exceptions: not only the Internal Affairs Committee but also the Sports Committee is responsible for matters falling within the competence of the Ministry of the Interior. Likewise, the Finance Ministry is mirrored not only by the Finance Committee, which is responsible for matters relating to fiscal legislation, but also by the Budget Committee, which considers the federal budget and all related issues. Given that its task is to deliberate on the budget and to exercise budgetary control, the Budget Committee is also responsible for the parliamentary scrutiny of all federal ministries. Furthermore, during the 12th electoral term (1990-1994), a separate committee was newly established to deal with tourism, an area which had previously been in the remit of the Economic Affairs Committee. The Committee on the Affairs of the European Union also falls outside the general committee structure as it collaborates not only with the Federal Foreign Office but also with a number of other government departments. The newly established Committees on the Affairs of the New Länder, on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, and on Cultural and Media Affairs also have a special status.
These permanent committees are set up for the entire duration of an electoral term. Special committees, on the other hand, may be set up to deal with specific matters, such as long and complex bills. They are dissolved as soon as they have completed their work. The most recent example was the Special Committee on the Protection of Unborn Life. Its task was to draft legislation which, taking into account pertinent judgments by the Federal Constitutional Court, created legal uniformity in this field in the whole of Germany, which although provided for in the Unification Treaty, had not yet been achieved.
How do Members of the Bundestag become members of a committee of their choosing? Here, too, the parliamentary groups play a key role, as it is they which appoint committee members. Therefore, if a Member wishes to sit on a particular committee, he must submit a corresponding request to his parliamentary group, which then processes and coordinates all the requests it receives. A parliamentary group may also remove an individual committee member from his post and replace him with another of its members.
The number of committee members each parliamentary group is entitled to appoint depends on its size and is calculated using the proportional method. If possible, Members should only sit on one committee as a regular member. Substitute members may attend all the committee's meetings but only when representing a regular member from their parliamentary group who is unable to be present do they have the right to vote. The number of votes in a committee is equal to the number of its regular members.
Members not belonging either to a parliamentary group or to a grouping have a special status in the committees. On the strength of a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court, and irrespective of the proportional method of seat allocation described above, they are entitled to sit on a committee to ensure that they have sufficient opportunity to take part in the work of Parliament. Which committee they sit on is decided by the President of the Bundestag after consultation with the Members concerned. Their membership gives them the right to speak and to table motions but not to vote.
As described above, the election result determines both the composition of the committees and the allocation of committee chairs and deputy chairs. In the 15th term, the SPD chaired 9 committees, the CDU/CSU 8, and Alliance 90/The Greens 2 and the FDP 2.
Following a decision by the Bundestag on the number of committees to be set up, and on the number of members they are to have, and following the allocation of committee chairs, the President convenes the committees' constituent meetings. These meetings are chaired by the President himself or by one of his Vice-Presidents. The committee must have a quorum, i.e. the majority of its members must be present. A committee is considered to have been constituted once the presence of a quorum has been ascertained and the committee chairman confirmed in office. It can then begin its political work.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, these committees prepare the deliberations and decisions of the Bundestag. They are not authorized to take final decisions on any matter; they may only make recommendations for decisions by the plenary. These recommendations may relate only to items of business referred to the committees, or to questions directly connected with them. Hence, the committees have no right of initiative in the plenary.
Since 1969, the committees have been expressly permitted to deal with matters in their sphere of competence which are not referred to them by the plenary. In such cases, a committee discusses the matters concerned and may request representatives of "its" ministry to attend its meetings and provide information. It is in fact standard practice for a committee to request "its" minister to report on planned legislation and other topical questions relating to his department several times during the electoral term. However, the committees' right to take up matters on their own initiative does not encompass the power to submit recommendations for decisions on them to the plenary.
The committees may also recommend that "their" ministers take specific measures. Their right to take up matters on their own initiative has become an important tool in scrutinizing the work of the ministries. The committees are an ideal forum for a dialogue on questions of detail.
However, the constant process of discussion which accompanies measures planned by the executive (e.g. civilian or military procurement, transport planning etc.) also has its drawbacks. Political control can easily become a form of participation in government, i.e. committees come to share responsibility for decisions taken by ministers, thereby making it more difficult for them to express criticism at a later date.
The committees are obliged to deal with the matters referred to them without delay. If, for whatever reasons, a committee's deliberations on a given item of business are delayed, ten weeks after referral of the item in question a parliamentary group or at least 31 Members may demand that the committee submit a report on the progress of its discussions. If a report is requested, it must be placed on the agenda of the Bundestag. This is an instrument by means of which a minority, and in particular the opposition, can put pressure on the committees to complete their deliberations on a given item. However, ten weeks of sittings are a long time; they may cover up to six months.
Committee meetings are prepared, convened and presided over by the respective committee chairman. The chairman may only convene committee meetings within the timetable drawn up by the Council of Elders. He is obliged to convene a meeting if requested to do so either by all the members of one parliamentary group in the committee or by a third of all committee members. Convening a committee meeting outside the set timetable, or outside Bonn, requires the permission of the President of the Bundestag, even if it has been agreed unanimously by the committee or requested by all the members of one parliamentary group. It is rare for a committee to decide by majority vote on the date and agenda for a committee meeting. Generally, this is left to the negotiating skill of the chairman, who seeks to achieve prior agreement with the parliamentary groups' spokesmen on the committee.
Often, a committee must consider a number of different bills and motions relating to the same issue, e.g. one from the Government or the parliamentary groups making up the governing coalition, one from the opposition and one from the Bundesrat. In such cases, the committee decides which text it will take as the basis for its deliberations. The other texts are then included as suggestions for amendments. The original text might therefore undergo substantial modification.
To prepare its work, each committee may, from among its members, formsubcommitteesfor specific tasks, unless one third of its members object. Subcommittees are set up either to consider a specific bill or problem, or to deal with certain areas of the committee's remit for an entire electoral term. Examples of the latter are the three subcommittees set up by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee's subcommittee on questions relating to the EU.
For practical reasons, the parliamentary groups may in exceptional cases delegate a Member to a subcommittee who is not a regular member of the respective permanent committee. Also, a subcommittee may be set up comprising members of several permanent committees concerned with the issue in question.
A committee has a quorum if the majority of its members are present. However, a committee is always deemed to have a quorum unless, prior to a vote, a committee member requests specifically that the presence of a quorum be ascertained. This means that a committee can conduct its business and take decisions even if fewer than half of its members are present. In most cases, a request for the presence of a quorum to be ascertained is intended merely to prevent a vote being taken by the committee in a composition which does not reflect the relative strengths of the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag. If, however, a quorum is present, a vote in which a chance majority decides cannot be prevented. Such votes are not very meaningful, however, because they can subsequently be overturned by the plenary.
Each committee has the right to demand the presence of a member of the Federal Government, both at its regular meetings and at any public hearings it may hold. In practice, however, it is rare for a committee to have to resort to this right: generally, in the case of important issues ministers themselves have an interest in attending the committees' deliberations and, if they are unable to do so personally, delegate a state secretary to attend in their stead.
In principle, committee meetings are not open to the public. The committees are entitled to admit the public to their meetings, but in practice they seldom do so. Committee members believe that without the presence of the public and the media they are able to engage in more objective and more open discussions.
As a result, however, the bulk of the Bundestag's work, i.e. the work in the parliamentary groups and their working parties, in the permanent committees and their subcommittees, in the Council of Elders and in the Presidium, takes place behind closed doors and therefore goes largely unnoticed by the public. The public forms its image of the Bundestag almost entirely on the basis of its plenary sessions, either by following them on television or from the gallery, or through reports in the press. Because the number of Members actually present in the chamber is often relatively small, this image is distorted and leads people to believe, quite mistakenly, that the Bundestag does not go about its work with the necessary commitment and zeal. As the statistics on the work of the Bundestag in the 12th, 13th and 14th electoral terms show, the opposite is in fact true.
Statistics on the work of the Bundestag in the 12th, 13th and 14th electoral terms
The committees may invite experts and representatives of interest groups to attend their non-public meetings. It is also customary for interest groups to communicate in writing their views on proposed legislation to the committees for inclusion in their deliberations. In the case of draft legislation which affects local authorities, the committees generally give the local-authority associations at federal level an opportunity to state their views before taking a decision.
Although, in line with their Joint Rules of Procedure, the federal ministries consult interest groups when preparing legislation, the latters' views are not always adequately reflected in the bills subsequently submitted by the Federal Government to the Bundestag.
In order to obtain information on a subject under debate, the committees may also hold public hearings attended by experts in the given field from outside Parliament. The committees make extensive use of their power to convene such hearings. They are a means for the committees not only to gather relevant information but also to inform the public about a wide range of views on issues of general interest. They also give interest groups an opportunity to state their often widely diverging positions publicly in the Bundestag. In this way, the committees, too, can become a "forum for the nation".
The right to request a public hearing is a minority right: a motion tabled by a quarter of the committee's members is sufficient. However, this applies only to items of business referred to the committees by the plenary and not to those which committees take up on their own initiative.
Occasionally, public hearings are broadcast on television. Moreover, they are generally held in large conference rooms to enable as many interested people as possible, in particular journalists, to follow their proceedings. The main points of the statements and remarks made by the experts and interest-group representatives invited to attend are recorded in the committee report. Occasionally, the proceedings of public hearings are published in full in the Bundestag seriesZur Sache, which deals with selected topics and aspects of the Bundestag's work.
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