DECISION
In the administrative court proceedings
of Mr. xxx,
plaintiff,
Legal representative: Attorney Sven Adam, Lange Geismarstraße 55, 37073 Göttingen,
against
The Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Police Headquarters xxx,
defendant,
due to a claim under the Freedom of Information Act
The 9th Chamber of the Potsdam Administrative Court decided on July 7, 2016, through Judge xxx as rapporteur:
The proceedings are discontinued.
The defendant shall bear the costs of the proceedings.
The amount in dispute is set at 5,000 euros.
REASONS
Since the parties have unanimously declared the main issue of the legal dispute resolved, the proceedings are to be discontinued in accordance with Section 92 Paragraph 3 Sentence 1 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (VwGO). The decision on costs is based on the cost provision pursuant to Section 155 Paragraph 4 VwGO, which also takes precedence over Section 161 Paragraph 2 VwGO. According to this provision, costs incurred through the fault of a party may be imposed on that party. The defendant is responsible for the costs of the legal proceedings because it only expressly and unambiguously stated during the legal proceedings that it did not possess the "situation reports of the Federal Police Directorate Munich for the regional railway line Kempten (Allgäu) Hauptbahnhof – Augsburg Hauptbahnhof as well as the corresponding data from GASIM for the years 2013 and 2014" that were included in the plaintiff's application. This was previously only vaguely discernible ("Situation maps for the specifically named route will not be created.") from the overall unclear initial decision of February 9, 2015, but not from the appeal decision of May 12, 2015, which relied solely on grounds for exclusion and not on the fact that the information included in the application was not available. Given these circumstances, it is equitable to order the defendant to bear the costs of the culpably caused legal action.
The determination of the value in dispute corresponds to the statutory default value in dispute (§ 52 para. 2 Court Costs Act).
The following is information on legal remedies.
