Questions to the Federal Government
Members have several possibilities of putting questions to the Federal Government.
The most effective parliamentary instrument for obtaining the comments of the Federal Government on important political questions and then publicly debating them is what is known as the major interpellation. Such interpellations were already known in the Reichstag at the time of the Kaiser, when they were initially the only possibility of addressing questions to the government.
Major interpellations may be submitted to the President by a parliamentary group or at least 31 Members. The President informs the Federal Government of them. As soon as the reply of the Federal Government has been received, it is placed on the agenda and debated. In general, major interpellations are concerned with matters of general political importance. If a parliamentary group or at least 31 Members so demand, a debate must also be held if the Federal Government delays replying for too long or does not reply at all. Under the Rules of Procedure, major interpellations need not be answered within a specific period, however.
In addition to major interpellations, which always aim to bring about a public debate, there are minor interpellations, which must also be signed by a parliamentary group or at least 31 Members. The President of the Bundestag forwards them to the Federal Government, requesting it to reply to them in writing within two weeks. The minor interpellation has been dealt with once the Federal Government has replied in writing. Both the questions and the answers are published as Bundestag printed papers. They are not debated. Minor interpellations are an appropriate means of obtaining detailed information from the Federal Government on specific issues.
Moreover, every Member of the Bundestag is entitled to address to the Federal Government brief individual questions for oral or written reply. These questions are either for oral reply in Question Time or for written reply within a week. Each Member of the Bundestag may submit two questions to the Federal Government for the Question Times in each week of sittings and, in addition, up to four questions per month for written reply.
In every week of sittings Question Times not exceeding a total of 180 minutes are conducted. As a rule, Question Times takes place on the Wednesday of weeks of sittings from 13.30 hours to 14.30 hours. The questions must refer to fields for which the Federal Government is responsible in some way. They must be concise, enable a brief answer and must not contain subjective statements or evaluations. The questions must be submitted to the President of the Bundestag not later than 10.00 hours on the Friday preceding the week of sittings in which they are to be answered. This time limit is intended to enable the questions to be forwarded to the Federal Government on the same day. The ministries responsible for replying thus have just under three days to do the research needed for the reply. Often such research is not only necessary in the ministry concerned but in other ministries, subordinate federal agencies and Land governments as well.
During Question Time the President calls the question and the name of the questioner. Where the latter is not present, his or her question is answered in writing if he or she has submitted a corresponding request to the President before the beginning of Question Time. Otherwise the Federal Government does not reply to the question. However, questioners may also withdraw their question and table it again for the next week of sittings, if they are unable to be present in the plenary when it is likely to be called. Questions which cannot, for lack of time, be called in the Question Time of a week of sittings are answered by the Federal Government in writing; the reply is also sent to the Parliamentary Secretariat, which ensures that it is included in the annex to the minutes of plenary proceedings. The questions received by Friday are grouped in a printed paper in accordance with the departmental responsibilities of the Federal Government. Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, the President determines the order in which these departments are called.
For several electoral terms now the practice has been as follows: of primary importance is the order of departmental responsibilities, as established by the Federal Government concerned (the order of the committees gives a rough indication of this). On the basis of this order, there is a rotating system for calling the departments in Question Time, under which the departments whose areas of reponsibility were not discussed at all in the preceding week of sittings are listed first. Priority is also given to a department if more than half of the questions submitted for the preceding week concerning its area of responsibility failed to be called. Notwithstanding this practice, the departments concerning which no more than two questions have been submitted are in principle listed first. Another departure from the above rule is that, on the basis of an agreement reached in the Council of Elders, questions addressed to the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Foreign Office are usually scheduled for Thursday.
In Question Time the questioners are entitled to put up to two supplementary questions following the initial reply to their question. Every other Member of the Bundestag may put one other supplementary question. The President will generally permit such questions as long as they do not threaten to upset the proper conduct of Question Time. This sometimes results in a very protracted question-and-answer session, which might almost be called a small debate. In general, the President does not permit any further supplementary questions when it is apparent from the questions and answers that further clarification of the matter at stake is not to be expected.
In addition to these normal questions for Question Time, the President may, by way of exception, permit questions of obviously urgent public interest (urgent questions) to be put during Question Time, if they were submitted no later than 12.00 hours on the previous day. However, they are deducted from the number of questions which the Member of the Bundestag concerned may submit in that week. Urgent questions are called at the beginning of the next Question Time following their submission.
Extensive use is made in the Bundestag of the above-mentioned rights to put questions. In the 14th electoral term (1998-2002) a total of 15,154 oral, written and urgent questions were put.
