Münster (dpa / lnw) – For the first time a citizen of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was successful with a constitutional complaint this year. The constitutional court of the state of North Rhine has agreed with a driver from Wuppertal. He had felt badly treated in a procedure before the district court of Wuppertal. Rightly so, as the court announced on Friday in Münster (Az: VerfGH 104/21.VB-2, decision of June 21, 2022).
After an accident, the plaintiff wanted to be compensated for the damage by the opponent’s liability insurance. Since this was only partially successful, he went to the district court of Wuppertal. There he presented the costs for an external paint shop via the invoice from the workshop. However, the court did not take note of this and curiously rejected the lawsuit with reference to the lack of evidence. The Constitutional Court saw this as a violation of the plaintiff’s right to be heard and referred the case back to the District Court of Wuppertal.
So-called individual constitutional complaints have only been possible in NRW since the beginning of 2019. Until then, there had only been lawsuits for organs, for example by parties in the state parliament. The majority of constitutional complaints from citizens are dismissed. Only about one is successful each year. This was last the case in September 2021.
