There are clear legal requirements for this, which are intended to take account of the constitutional principle of the lifetime principle (Art. 33 para. 5 GG). It is ensured that civil servants cannot be removed from office by political bodies. However, so-called political civil servants enjoy a special status. According to Section 30 para. 1 sentence 1, civil servants can be temporarily retired for life at any time if they hold an office that requires them to be in continuous agreement with the fundamental political views and objectives of the government. The state legislature is to decide which positions this is the case for, Section 30 para. 1 sentence 2 BeamtStG.
Accordingly, the individual federal states also differ in terms of which lifetime civil servants are political civil servants. In this regard, Section 37 para. 1 no. 5 of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Civil Servants Act stipulated that police chiefs, insofar as they are civil servants for life, also belong to the category of political civil servants. In its ruling of 9 April 2024, the Federal Constitutional Court deemed this provision to be incompatible with Art. 33 para. 5 of the Basic Law and therefore annulled it. According to this decision, police chiefs - at least in NRW - cannot be categorised as political civil servants, meaning that the general regulations and constitutional standards on the lifetime principle must be observed. Early retirement at any time is therefore no longer an option. At the same time, the Federal Constitutional Court has taken the opportunity to clarify the requirements for categorisation as a political civil servant.
This decision initially has no direct impact on the legal situation in Schleswig-Holstein, as the state legislature only categorises state secretaries and government spokespersons of the state government as political civil servants in accordance with Section 37 LBG. However, should such a categorisation be considered in the future, the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court would have to be taken into account - with a special evaluation of the legal structure of the police chief in North Rhine-Westphalia in comparison to the legal situation in Schleswig-Holstein.
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