The AfD has taken the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to court. She is pulling out all the stops in the process because there is a lot at stake for the party.
The most important things at a glance
The AfD is currently suing against a decision by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). In an appeal process, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla’s party is taking action against the domestic secret service before the 5th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Münster.
The trial continues this Monday. On previous days of the hearing, the AfD filled several hours in the trial with reservations about the court and the naming of numerous witnesses. Ten more dates are scheduled until the beginning of July. t-online gives an overview.
Who is suing whom and why?
The AfD is suing the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. It classified the AfD and the youth organization Junge Alternative (JA) as suspected right-wing extremist cases in 2021. This classification allows intelligence surveillance of the party and its youth organization. The AfD sued against the classification in 2022, but lost at the Cologne Administrative Court.
The party has now appealed against this judgment. The next higher authority, the OVG in Münster, is discussing again whether the BfV can treat the AfD as a suspected case of right-wing extremism. The independent court examines how much the party goes against the fundamental pillars of democracy.
Background: The court in Cologne had confirmed the assessment of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2021 with reference to reports and material collections from the authority and primarily referred to one point of content. Both the now formally dissolved wing of the Thuringian AfD state leader Björn Höcke and the JA are committed to an ethnically understood concept of the people. From the party’s point of view, the German people must be preserved in their ethnic composition and “foreigners” must be excluded as far as possible. According to the court, this contradicts the concept of the people in the Basic Law. The party and the JA have therefore been allowed to be monitored using intelligence means since 2021. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution provided evidence of this using 275 file folders from investigators and 15,000 pages of court files.
What is the status of the process?
The prominent figures, the party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, saved themselves the trip to Münster at the start of the trial. Instead, federal executives Carsten Hütter and Roman Reusch represented the party. Reusch was senior public prosecutor in Berlin until he entered the Bundestag for the AfD from 2017 to 2021. They presented so many witnesses in court that the judges quickly moved the trial to the entrance hall of the house – also because of the many journalists on site. In addition, Reusch and Hütter questioned the court’s Senate in an application for bias.
The presiding judge Gerald Buck accused the AfD of abusing the law. The party did not provide any new arguments for its reservations about the Senate. Your request for bias was made across the board and obviously without any basis. Observers had to leave the courtroom in the meantime because the AfD wanted to exclude media representatives and spectators for a certain point that did not concern content intended for the public. The Senate did not follow this.
How does the AfD argue?
In the process, the AfD questions whether the Federal Office has a legal basis for assessing the party as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The only thing that matters is the Basic Law, which gives parties a special role in democracy, she argues.
