The Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia has declared a provision in the Local Elections Act on accountability and reporting obligations for municipal electoral groups to be unconstitutional (case no.: 30/23.VB-2 of 6 May 2025). A non-registered association, which had been represented on the council of a municipality as a parliamentary group since 2004, considered itself to be at a disadvantage compared to other electoral groups and parties and was partially successful with its constitutional complaint.

The constitutional complaint was successful with regard to a provision in the Local Elections Act, according to which voter groups that are subject to accountability under the Voter Group Transparency Act can only submit an election proposal if they enclose the certificates issued to them by the President of the state parliament for the last two completed financial years (Section 15 a (1) KWahlG). The Constitutional Court recognised this as a disadvantage compared to voter groups that are not subject to this obligation and compared to political parties. It has now declared this provision null and void.

However, the Constitutional Court considered the different accountability obligations under the Voter Group Transparency Act (Section 2 (1) WählGTranspG) to be permissible. According to this law, voter groups that form a parliamentary group or group in a local council are subject to stricter accountability obligations than those that can only send one representative. However, this unequal treatment is justified as it leads to more „transparency of democratic processes at municipal level and better comparability of parties and voter groups in municipal elections“, according to the court.