Mohrenstraße in Berlin's Mitte district can now be renamed on Saturday as planned. On Friday evening, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court rejected the urgent applications of several residents, citing, among other things, the low probability of success of their lawsuits.
On Friday morning, the Berlin Administrative Court had initially granted the urgent applications for legal protection filed by several residents, thereby blocking the renaming. The Mitte district immediately lodged an appeal with the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court, which upheld the appeal and rejected the urgent applications.
In its reasoning, the court stated that it was “not apparent that the arguments put forward in the legal proceedings would change the assessment of the legality of the street renaming.” Furthermore, the residents who had filed the lawsuit against the renaming were “not directly affected in any of their fundamental rights.”
The street will be renamed Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Straße. Born around 1703 in what is now Ghana in West Africa, Amo was brought to Germany as a child. He was the first known philosopher and legal scholar of African origin in this country.
The district council already approved the renaming by a majority vote in August 2020. The reason given was that the name Mohrenstraße “is discriminatory and damages Berlin's reputation.”
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