AfD in court: It depends on democrats

It’s good that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is finally consistently dealing with the AfD. You shouldn’t rely on it.

For democracy and against the AfD: 5,000 people formed a seven-kilometer-long human chain between Bochum and Herne on March 3rd Photo: Christoph Reichwein/dpa

It’s generally like this: Anyone who takes a lawsuit to court also wants a verdict – and also quickly. This is not the case with the AfD. She has filed a lawsuit against the classification as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and has now spent two days before the Higher Administrative Court in Münster doing everything to ensure that the proceedings are dragged out. Of course, it is the party’s right to take legal action against the classification and to push for a careful examination in court.

But the AfD’s bizarre approach, which the judge said was “abuse of law”, shows that the party wants to delay the verdict as much as possible because it is afraid of the consequences. And on the way there, we prefer to sabotage the rule of law. However, this in turn fits into the arguments of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution – and could therefore backfire for the AfD.

Their behavior shows how nervous the party is. And she has good reason for that. Because if the court rejects their lawsuit, which there is a lot to suggest, an upgrade could soon be in order: the AfD as a whole would then be officially certified as a right-wing extremist party. Which in turn is likely to greatly heat up the debate about banning driving. So there is a lot at stake for the AfD.

However, everyone who cares about democracy and the rule of law should not rely on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution or the courts. Because the stamp “proven right-wing extremist” does not stop voters from voting for the AfD. This is shown by the surveys in Thuringia and Saxony, among others, where the state associations have long been classified this way and the party still achieves 30 percent or more in surveys.

You just have to look

In order to recognize that the AfD wants to attack liberal democracy and the constitutional state, you don’t need an official stamp anyway – you just have to look at what AfD politicians do every day. Research by the taz, for example, showed in 2018 how many AfD employees in the Bundestag have connections to extreme right-wing organizations, and an update from Bayerischer Rundfunk now makes it clear: This trend has become massively worse. At least 100 employees belong to right-wing extremist organizations. The consequence of the AfD? She agitates against public broadcasting.

It is important that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution deals consistently with the AfD. More importantly, Democrats across the country are opposing the far right. The demonstrations against right-wing extremism in recent weeks are a big step.

However, long-term commitment is likely to be crucial, especially in municipalities and regions where right-wing extremist ideology is in the process of gaining majority support – or already has. Anyone who gets involved here definitely needs to be strengthened – also by the state and democratic party politics.