Facts
On October 25, 2010, the Directorate of Justice and Home Affairs of the Canton of Zurich opened the consultation on a completely revised Municipal Act. One of the changes concerned the school districts. According to § 31 para. 2 of the consultation draft, the parliamentary municipalities (political municipalities with a municipal parliament) were to assume the tasks of the public school in the future. In the consultation, this obligation to create so-called unitary municipalities was welcomed by the majority, but was not included in the draft by the Cantonal Council.
The preparatory commission of the Cantonal Council took up the matter again and supplemented it with a transitional provision (§ 188a E-GG/ZH). According to this, the school districts that completely or partially cover the territory of parliamentary municipalities were to be obliged to decide on their dissolution by the end of the next regular term of office after the entry into force of the new Municipal Act.
The Cantonal Council finally adopted the revised Municipal Act with § 3 para. 2 sentence 2 and § 177, which provided for this dissolution of the school districts. Four upper secondary school districts and six political municipalities then filed a complaint with the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court repealed § 3 para. 2 sentence 2 and § 177 of the revised Municipal Act. It justified this as follows:
The cantonal constitution grants the school districts the right to decide on their own dissolution in…