Are you allowed to do that? – Removed Green Party election posters spark discussions
The Basel-Stadt construction and transport department is said to have hung election posters on a garden fence. The reason is a change in the law. Government candidate Anina Ineichen questions this.
In Kleinbasel, posters were removed from garden fences and they are still hanging on Bruderholz.
Green election posters were removed from the garden fence of a property in Kleinbasel. Residents were just able to save the posters from the trash can. This doesn’t go down well with Anina Ineichen, government candidate and Grand Councilor of the Green Party. That’s why she now wants answers from the government.
According to Ineichen, those who put up the posters said they were employees of the Basel-Stadt Construction and Transport Department (BVD). Ineichen continued that they gave the owner of the property a change in the law as a reason. The reason: election posters are no longer allowed on garden fences. Ineichen did not find such a law in the collection of laws. Therefore, in her proposal she asks the government council what the current legal situation is and whether there has actually been a change. She would like to legally clarify whether the removal of the election posters was legal or caused damage to property.
“In terms of democratic policy, that would be tricky”
Damage to posters is not a new phenomenon. Posters are often daubed and pasted over or torn off completely. Nadja Mühlemann, media spokeswoman for the APG poster company, says that vandalism is increasing, especially before elections. According to Mühlemann, it is not important which parties the affected election posters come from.
According to Ineichen, it is common in Basel-Stadt for election posters to be put up on garden fences, walls or doors on private property during election campaigns. The Act on the Use of Public Spaces (NÖRG) and the Poster Ordinance regulate the removal of unlawful posters if they are in public spaces, says Ineichen. However, to their knowledge, there is no law that regulates the posting of posters on private property.
“I think from a legal point of view this was probably damage to property and simply removing the posters,” says Ineichen. The garden fence in Kleinbasel, although on the border, is entirely on the owner’s property. In the best case, according to Ineichen, there would be a new directive that had been implemented incorrectly. She “does not assume any malice.” If there is a mistake, it has to be worked out. “From a democratic policy perspective, that would be tricky,” because it couldn’t be the case that posters were only taken down depending on the situation. Because she still sees election posters on many other garden fences, says Ineichen.
Will public space be redefined?
According to Ineichen, if the law has actually been changed, this would mean that everything on the property line is now public space. Not only election campaign posters would be affected, concert posters or paintings on walls would also have to be removed, says Ineichen. “The canton would have to communicate such a sudden change,” says Ineichen.
In her interpellation, Ineichen now wants to know from the government council whether the NÖRG regulations “are applied to the outside of property boundaries that border on public space”. She also asked whether the BVD had removed large-scale posters on private property during the current general election. She asked whether administration employees were authorized to make changes to private property.
When asked, a spokesman for the BVD did not know anything about a change in the law. “Election posters that are placed on private property do not require approval from the commons administration,” says the BVD.
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