Minister of Justice Marion Gentges welcomes the change in the law implementing the Administrative Court Code. This is intended to speed up the construction of wind turbines.
Minister of Justice Marion Gentges welcomes the amendment to the law on the implementation of the Administrative Court Code (PDF) passed by the state parliament on Wednesday, May 11, 2022 . This law regulates the abolition of the objection procedure in administrative procedures that deal with the construction, operation and modification of wind turbines that require approval under immission control law.
Gentges said: When expanding wind power, we must and want to become faster. The law that has been passed concerns contributions that the judiciary can and wants to make to speed up proceedings in the construction of large wind turbines: It is right to omit the objection procedure for wind turbines with a total height of more than 50 meters. The objection procedure offers no added value when building large wind turbines, ties up resources unnecessarily and delays the procedure as a whole. At least as important is the strengthening of the staff of the Administrative Court. Here we can become more efficient and faster through specialization and additional judges.
The objection procedure for immission control approval procedures for wind turbines with a total height of more than 50 meters takes between one month and several years - on average one year. Since the planning of these systems is regularly accompanied by extensive public participation, all arguments are already known even without objection proceedings, so that the objection proceedings usually do not result in any gain in knowledge or an improvement in the decision. In addition, the objection procedure is largely ineffective if, due to third-party concerns, the decisions are reviewed in advance by the courts in interim legal protection and the decision on the objection is therefore awaited until the court decision, which is usually the case.
Due to the abolition of the objection procedure, in future direct rescission or obligation actions can be brought before the Baden-Wrttemberg Administrative Court, which is responsible in the first instance. We have to achieve a targeted increase in efficiency where it really matters. And that is at the administrative court, which is responsible for these disputes in the first instance. Here we have to enable specialization for such complex processes with sufficient staff," says Gentges.