An AfD lawsuit against Thuringia’s head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Stephan Kramer, over statements in a media report was successful on one point and was dismissed on two other points. According to the administrative court in Weimar, Kramer violated the neutrality requirement by commenting on the content and programmatic orientation of the Thuringian AfD, the court announced. The decision is not yet legally binding.
In Kramer’s statement, “Ideally, citizens decide against the enemies of the constitution by voting in elections, so that there is no danger to the free democratic basic order,” the court sees no advance, since the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not explicitly name the AfD.
The court also does not consider Kramer’s sentence “You denigrate our democracy, always and constantly, not only on Mondays on our streets, but also in pretty much every statement that I have heard made by an AfD representative in a parliament” to be unlawful. Reason: In the opinion of the court, the statement “represents a permissible explanation of the findings in the 2021 and 2022 Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reports”. These reports provide evidence as to why the public appearance of the Thuringian AfD is directed against the principle of democracy.
The point objected to by the court was about Kramer’s statements “that a party that actually has no political alternatives and solutions to offer” “is responsible for the program of this party, which in any case hardly exists in terms of content” and “the topic itself is completely unimportant”. The administrative court made it clear that “the equal participation of all parties in the political decision-making of the people requires that state organs maintain neutrality in the political competition between the parties,” as the court said in a statement.
