Hamburg Constitutional Court rejects repeat referendum on basic income

The referendum on an unconditional basic income, which was clearly lost last year, will not be repeated. The Hamburg Constitutional Court rejected the initiators' request. “The applications are rejected,” said court president Birgit Voßkuhler on Friday when the verdict was announced. The initiators of the referendum were disappointed. “It’s a shame that Hamburg doesn’t get a pilot project,” said applicant Jack Kurfess.

The initiators had complained that the voting documents had been sent out before the accompanying poster campaign was even allowed to start without requiring any applications. In addition, Finance Senator Andreas Dressel (SPD) in particular violated the ban on neutrality that applies to government members by repeatedly speaking out against the referendum “Hamburg tests basic income”. And finally, the government factions of the SPD and the Greens claimed the untruth in their statement attached to the voting documents.

The court largely did not follow this. There were no errors in the voting process “that would be of such importance that the significant interest in the existence of the voting result, which is fundamentally recognized, has to take second place,” said Voßkuhler. She also referred to the clarity of the voting results.

On October 12th last year, 62.7 percent of citizens voted against the initiative's proposal, while only 37.3 percent voted for it. Specifically, only 212,680 Hamburg residents decided in favor of the referendum, but 357,619 voted against it. Voting turnout was 43.7 percent.

In the first state model experiment, the initiators wanted to provide 2,000 representatively selected Hamburg residents with a basic income for three years. In 2025 this would have been 1,346 euros per month plus health insurance. However, your own income would be taken into account. The initiative also wanted to use a scientific process to find out whether the basic income can work.

The court explained that the fact that voting documents were sent before the deadline from which posters could be hung in the city without permission was true. However, there is no legal objection to this, as the referendum law does not specify when the documents may be sent. They just have to be available no later than three weeks before voting day.

The court also has no problem with statements made by senators about the referendum. They had not violated their requirement of neutrality and objectivity. “The relevant statements made by Senate members in the run-up to the referendum were not made in an official capacity,” said Voßkuhler. You - especially Finance Senator Dressel - expressly expressed yourself as SPD party politicians.

In the court's opinion, the fact that the Senate is responsible for conducting the referendum, including determining the result, does not mean that it necessarily has to behave neutrally outside of its function as the committee responsible for voting on the proposal. He could certainly comment on the referendum while maintaining the principle of objectivity.

The accusation that the government factions of the SPD and the Greens violated the principle of objectivity in several places in the official information booklet is, however, partially justified. “The errors in the voting process highlighted here do not turn out to be so important that they could outweigh the interest in the validity of the voting results,” said Voßkuhler.

The SPD and the Greens had claimed, among other things, that in addition to the expected costs of around 46 million euros, there would be costs for administration, research and consulting. This was objectively incorrect and incomprehensible, explained the court president, referring to the draft bill put to the vote.

Despite the defeat in court, applicant Otto Lüdemann sees the initiative as a milestone on the way to a basic income. In 2016, 23 percent in Switzerland voted for a basic income. “In the Hamburg referendum in 2025, 37 percent voted for the model experiment,” said Lüdemann. This means that approval in Hamburg was significantly higher - even though a specific bill with all the questions of its practical implementation was up for vote here.

It was the second attempt at the basic income initiative. At the beginning of 2020, the initiators had already collected the necessary number of 10,000 valid signatures for a popular initiative. However, the planned referendum was stopped by the Hamburg Constitutional Court in the summer of 2023 at the request of the red-green Senate - the very court that has now decided again.