More than 1,000 lawyers and legal professionals across Germany are backing calls for the government to launch proceedings at the Federal Constitutional Court to ban the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
At least 1,051 lawyers, judges, public prosecutors, jurists from public administration and business, as well as legal trainees, have signed an open letter addressed to the federal government and members of the Bundestag, the Republican Lawyers' Association (RAV) announced on Monday in Berlin. The letter, first published in mid-July, was initially signed by more than 500 legal professionals before support grew to its current level.
In the letter, the RAV refers to a legal opinion commissioned by the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (Society for Civil Rights, GFF). The study concluded that the AfD's policies violate both the principle of human dignity enshrined in the Basic Law and the democratic principle, rendering the party unconstitutional.
The Bundestag and federal government are once more being urged, as the politically responsible bodies, to "immediately initiate the necessary steps to file an application with the Federal Constitutional Court, with the goal of having the AfD's unconstitutionality established and thereby bringing about a ban of the party," the RAV stated.
The signatories warned that failing to act could result in "serious damage to democracy and a threat to many people, should the AfD succeed in turning its anti-constitutional policies into reality."
Angela Furmaniak, RAV chairwoman and co-initiator of the open letter, said the Basic Law provides "an instrument that must now finally be used." She added that politicians could "no longer hide behind pretend arguments," but must instead "act before it is too late."
Under Article 21, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, parties are to be classified as unconstitutional if they "seek, by reason of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany." Such parties can be banned by the Federal Constitutional Court.
Only the federal government, the Bundestag, or the Bundesrat has the authority to file an application to ban a nationally organized party with the Federal Constitutional Court. Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) currently monitors the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist case, while several of its state-level branches have already been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist.
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