The Federal Administrative Court has declared the closure of a wholesale market in Düsseldorf to be lawful and dismissed the action brought against it by a wholesaler (Ref. 8 CN 1/23 of 24.04.2024). According to the city, the wholesale market was no longer part of the public services; the space could be better utilised elsewhere.

With its judgement, the Federal Administrative Court has now clarified that the right to local self-government does not oblige the municipality to continue operating a public facility, even if it has existed for many decades. The municipality can fulfil voluntary tasks and create public facilities, but can also dispose of them again. With this decision, the Federal Administrative Court is expressly moving away from its earlier judgement on the „Offenbach Christmas market“ from 2009. At that time, the court had ruled that the municipality was not free to decide to dispense with voluntary tasks and close public facilities at any time.

For municipalities, this means that they are no longer obliged to perform voluntary tasks or operate public facilities that they can no longer afford or that they no longer wish to continue for other reasons, particularly in times of tight budgets, budgetary security or debt burdens.

Contact persons for municipal law issues in our practice are Rechtsanwalt Dr Dominik Lück and Rechtsanwalt Tobias Schröter.