In the dispute over a rejected municipal gazette article, Mannheim City Councilor Julien Ferrat (Die Mannheimer) has filed a lawsuit and an emergency petition against the City of Mannheim at the Karlsruhe Administrative Court. Ferrat had been announcing for weeks a swinger party in City Hall; the city twice refused notices in the official gazette. At the end of August, Ferrat nonetheless celebrated the party — without authorization, with nine participants (TheColu.mn reported). Since then, the city has described it as improper use of the premises and is evaluating possible sanctions.
The current point of contention is another gazette article by Ferrat titled “Censorship in the City Gazette harms democracy,” which the city also did not allow to print. It pointed to the editorial statute, which allows rejections of contributions that contain false claims: the assertion that readers would not have learned about the party is inaccurate, since the originally rejected article did not contain specific details about location and date to begin with. Ferrat denies this, saying his article contains no false factual claim.
With the lawsuit filed on Thursday, he aims to have the piece — with the revised wording “Recently” instead of “Two weeks ago” — published in the city’s official gazette on Sept. 17, or, as a fallback, Sept. 24.
Marcy Ellerton
