Constitution Issues and Lawsuit
Constitution Issues and Lawsuit
An Introductory Overview
In the 1990’s, questions about the constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society came to prominence in Society life. Theorists began to cast doubts on the identity of today’s General Anthroposophical Society, and denying that it was the General Anthroposophical Society that Rudolf Steiner founded during the Christmas Conference of 1923/24. They claimed that, instead, due to constitutional steps taken in 1924 and 1925, today’s society no longer has anything to do with the society founded during the Christmas Conference, and they postulated the existence of two General Anthroposophical Societies.
Until 2001, the Board of the GAS had vehemently opposed this “two-society theory”, holding instead that there had always been just one society – the society which originated during the Christmas Conference. This had always been the position of every board of directors and of almost every society member. In the 1990’s, the Board began to prepare changes in the constitution of the Society which would have significantly curtailed members’ rights, and in 1999, it proposed statute changes which made it all but impossible for members to have any real share in shaping the Society. In view of later events, it is interesting to note that this attempt at member disenfranchisement was presented as the intention of making Rudolf Steiner’s Principles the official Society statutes again, though, as it turned out, in the process they were to undergo changes that perverted their strongly democratic character. Massive member protests soon propelled this draft of statute changes into the wastebasket (“wastebasket-statutes”).
This same draft also contained a “Conclusion” which opposed the two-society theory; members were to vote for the proposition that there is only one GAS, which goes back to the Christmas Conference, officially making this belief the belief of the general meeting.
Members were greatly surprised, therefore, when at the 2000 meeting supporters of the two-society theory presented a motion to the effect that they themselves (i.e., the bringers of this motion) be charged with clarifying the constitution issue and with the drafting of a new constitution. This motion was not voted on, however, but. bypassing the vote; the Board joined with these members to form a “Constitution Group”. This group, from which the member-ship at large was excluded, drew up the “Mannheim Conclusion”, published in the spring of 2001, which without reservation suddenly supported the existence of two societies, and was cosigned by Board members Paul Mackay and Bodo von Plato.
Thus, without any explantion whatsoever, the Board completely reversed itself, abruptly endorsing the two-society theory, and thus also endorsing studies which turned out to be “proving” the two-society theory by means of many inaccuracies and obvious falsifications of statements made by Rudolf Steiner. The Vorstand now endorsed the very theory it had until recently vehemently opposed.
The consequences of this reversal were soon to be felt. The Board did not give the broader membership any opportunity to understand or discuss the constitution issue. On the contrary, it boycotted member attempts to do so, and simply took action on its new conviction instead. At the General Meeting of 2002, Board members read a declaration stating that they were planning revolutionary constitutional changes on the basis of the two-society theory. Their first main aim was to “reactivate” an alleged second anthroposophical society (which they called the “General Anthropsophical Society (Christmas Conference)” GAS(CC)) and portrayed as the true “Christmas Conference Society”, and to declare the Principles to be its statutes, while, however, drastically changing and perverting them in a way that curtailed members’ rights. The second aim was to dissolve our existing, 80-year-old GAS.
The Board’s plans seemed to be succeeding. When made to believe that this was the only way to reconnect with the Christmas Conference, most members – euphoric, though ill-informed – went along with the Vorstand’s “reactivation” plans on December 28 and 29, 2002, and, nine months later, on November 15, 2003, actually voted to dissolve the GAS.
These devastating resolutions are still not legal, but only because of the lawsuits brought by several members, among them members of the LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE group, who could not resign themselves to the Board’s plans. On February 3, 2004, the Dorneck-Thierstein District Court sided fully with the plaintiffs, judging the Board’s theoretical society, the GAS(CC), legally nonexistent.
On January 12, 2005, a day after hearing the Board’s appeal, the Solothurn High Court announced that it concurred with the first judgment made a year ago by the Dorneck-Thierstein District Court. On February 23, the Solothurn Court issued an explanation of the judgment.
"We have established
that the General Anthroposophical Society (Christmas Conference)
is not
a society according to Article 60ff in the Swiss Book of Civil Law."