"The CDU and the Greens should reconsider filling the position of Ombudsman and Police Commissioner." With this recommendation, the FDP in the Hessian state parliament has reacted to the difficulties that the government coalition has encountered as a result of the personnel situation.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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As reported, the majority of the state parliament had already created the office in 2020 at the urging of the Greens.

To this day, however, it is not foreseeable which personality it will take on.

Last fall, the Greens presented a candidate who, however, did not take up the position for health reasons.

Obviously, the matter is not as important to the government factions as it was claimed in the legislative process, says the domestic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Stefan Müller.

"Otherwise it would be completely irresponsible to leave the position vacant for so long." If you don't fill the position, you save money, says Müller.

In addition, duplicate structures are avoided.

Because the already existing contact person of the police and the police officer would work in parallel.

The fact that the wanted personality should also be Ombudsman at the same time makes a clear demarcation from the work of the Petitions Committee impossible.

“The job was a farce from the start”

Müller's assumption that the CDU and the Greens do not agree on the issue is shared by SPD parliamentary group leader Günter Rudolph.

"Obviously, CDU Interior Minister Beuth and his party friends are sabotaging the project to the best of their ability," says the Social Democrat.

"And the Greens are not able to do anything about it." The coalition can no longer hide how deep the rifts between the partners are.

Rudolph reminds that the project was already in the black-green coalition agreements of 2013 and 2018.

"Now it's only a good year until the next state election, and I actually have no more hope that the current state government will be able to come to a result in the time until then," said Rudolph.

The left suspects that there are no applicants for the post because it does not have the necessary skills.

"The position was a farce from the start, the Greens willingly swallowed the toad," says Parliamentary Secretary Torsten Felstehausen.

Obviously, the government coalition's goal is to keep the position vacant.

Recommendations for action by the commission of experts, which could help to strengthen confidence in the actions of the police, also disappear in the interior minister's drawer.

"The urgent reforms in the police force are still stagnating," says Felstehausen.

The post already exists in almost all federal states

From a purely legal point of view, the fact that the parliamentary decision of December 2020 has not been implemented to date is apparently irrelevant.

In any case, the President of the State Parliament, Astrid Wallmann (CDU), is not taking the delay as an opportunity to intervene.

According to Wallmann, the commissioner will be elected "at the suggestion of the parliamentary groups" for a term of six years.

If this happens, the state parliament administration will immediately provide the necessary infrastructure and support the incumbent accordingly in his work.

The position of Ombudsman or Police Commissioner has now been created in almost all federal states.

The Bremen Parliament, for example, like Hesse, also made such a decision at the end of 2020.

A year later, the selection committee agreed on one applicant.

The leader of the Bremen Greens, Björn Fecker, emphasized in an interview with the "Weser-Kurier" that the position was "advertised in a transparent process".