Digital Committee meets in private: civil law experts warn of regression

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21 civil society groups have published a letter in which they criticize the plan to preferably hold the German Bundestag's Digital Committee in a non-public format again in the future. According to the letter published by the D64 initiative to committee chairman Hansjörg Durz (CSU), anyone expecting civil society to provide impetus for sustainable action and expertise must offer transparency and opportunities for participation and public discussion.

Under the coalition government, an amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag had made public access to committee meetings a common practice. Section 69 (1) sentence 1 of the Rules of Procedure places the decision whether they meet in public on a permanent or topic-related basis in the hands of the majority of the committees. However, the fact that the amendment did not make public meetings a general principle requiring an exception now allows the new political majority to retreat behind closed doors.

Johannes Schätzl, SPD representative on the Digital Committee, writes in response to an inquiry that this does not actually change anything. In the previous legislative period, the Digital Committee did not meet in public either. This practice will simply be maintained.

Durz also emphasizes that he sees no change: “In the previous legislative period, the then Digital Committee also did not meet in public as a matter of principle due to a corresponding resolution of 25 January 2023. And even then, it was only possible to discuss individual items on the agenda in public by resolution. This means that the basic procedure has not changed. Regrettably, this situation has not yet been reflected in the reporting.”

Re-arcanization of the parliamentary debate?

Whether the admission of the public is required by constitutional law is controversial. The dispute mainly revolves around whether the constitutional norm of Article 42, “The Bundestag shall deliberate in public” extends to the work of the committees. Tendencies to allow committees to meet behind closed doors are sometimes castigated in the debate as “a rearkanization of parliamentary debate.”

In most state parliaments, committees generally meet in public. The state politicians would certainly deny that their work suffers as a result of opening up. According to Table Media, however, only the culture and sports committees in the current Bundestag are to be open to the public regularly in the future.

Interest of the public/necessity of expert advice

“The shaping of digitalization concerns us all and must therefore be open to public discussion,” write the petitioners, from AG Kritis to Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. In the last legislative period, they accompanied the work on the Data Governance Act, digital identities, and the implementation of the EU AI Act.

Elina Eickstädt, spokesperson for the Chaos Computer Club, warns in a press release: “Trust requires transparency and technical expertise as well as professional classification. Negotiations behind closed doors would also exclude this important expertise and reduce players to a reactive role instead of an accompanying and critical one.”

Elisa Lindinger, Managing Director of SUPERRR Lab, is also quoted in the press release as saying that people's trust in the digital competence of politicians is at risk of being shaken.

Reactions from the committee chairs

The vice chair of the committee, Anna Lührmann (Greens), criticized the decision of the committee majority. “The blanket non-publicity is fatal,” said Lührmann when asked. “After all, the best policy is created through exchange with civil society, business, and science. Especially in times of declining trust in political institutions, we need transparency. As Greens, we will continue to campaign for committee meetings to be open to the public.”

The Greens are planning to counteract this by holding public hearings. Furthermore, they will “continue to call on the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition majority to enable transparency and public participation,” said Lührmann.

(mho)