2024-09-30 17:14:27
The AfD achieved great success in the elections in the East. Now the debate about a party ban is gaining momentum again.
The Bundestag is likely to vote soon on instructing the Federal Constitutional Court to examine a ban on the AfD. MPs from the SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens and Left have drawn up a corresponding group proposal, as first reported by “Welt am Sonntag”. The application is available on t-online.
So far, individual MPs have been behind the proposal, not the entire parliamentary group. In order to submit such a cross-party proposal to the Bundestag, 37 members are needed. According to “Welt”, the motion is supported by significantly more members of the Bundestag, namely at least ten from each parliamentary group. In order to then pass the motion, a simple majority would be needed in the Bundestag, i.e. more yes votes than no votes.
The draft, which is available to t-online, is entitled “Application for a decision by the German Bundestag on the initiation of proceedings to determine the unconstitutionality of the Alternative for Germany”.
On the one hand, the initiators are asking the Federal Constitutional Court to “declare in accordance with Article 21 Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law that the Alternative for Germany party is unconstitutional.” On the other hand, they request that “the assets of the Alternative for Germany be confiscated for charitable purposes in accordance with Section 46 Paragraph 2, Sentence 3 of the BVerfGG in favor of the Federal Republic of Germany.” And also to state that “the alternative for Germany is excluded from state financing according to Article 21 Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law”.
To ensure that a ban procedure does not fail due to informants in the party, which has already become a problem for the NPD, there is also a mandate for the federal and state governments. The application calls on them to “immediately work through their constitutional protection authorities to establish the requirement of strict state freedom formulated by the Federal Constitutional Court for party ban proceedings.” So to shut down possible informants and withdraw undercover investigators.
The justification for the application states, among other things: “After the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist case nationwide, there are indications that the party is unconstitutional. In order to adequately take into account the protection of the constitution provided for by the Basic Law, the The Bundestag is now initiating a procedure to examine the constitutionality of the AfD.”
The initiators continue to write: “The AfD opposes central basic principles of the free democratic basic order” and the “human dignity and the ban on discrimination” are now “blatantly questioned” by the AfD. There are “repeated trivializations of the monstrous National Socialist crimes and, moreover, clear confessions about them.”
After the last NPD ban process failed because the Constitutional Court judged the party to be too insignificant to be able to achieve its goals, the applicants formulated: “Unlike the NPD, it does not appear completely hopeless that the AfD will pursue its anti-constitutional goals actually achieved – on the contrary!” It gets a lot of votes in elections “and is in the process of permanently establishing itself as the strongest force in some federal states.”