More than a thousand jurists in Germany support initiating a ban procedure against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) before the Federal Constitutional Court and urge the Government to take the necessary steps to achieve this, according to the Republican Lawyers Association (RAV) reported this Monday. The request comes in the midst of a campaign for three regional elections to be held in September in Germany; AfD has chances to enter a regional government for the first time, according to polls.
Read more Minors before a judge: the far right pushes for tougher juvenile justice
At least 1,051 signatures, including lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and other legal professionals, have already joined an open letter addressed to Friedrich Merz’s Government and the members of the German Parliament. The letter, published and initially signed in July by more than 500 jurists, has doubled its support in just 10 days. In it, the signatories argue that the claim sometimes made that there is insufficient evidence to determine a possible unconstitutionality of AfD “has been rendered baseless” in light of the legal opinion of the NGO Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) published at the end of June. The study concluded that AfD’s policies violate the principle of human dignity of the Basic Law — especially due to its positions against Muslims, people with dual nationality, and asylum seekers — and the principle of democracy — with campaigns and lawsuits against political opponents to try to silence them — and is therefore unconstitutional.
For this GFF opinion, funded exclusively by private donations, more than three million data points from the party (programs, parliamentary documents, press releases, and social media posts) were analyzed taking into account the criteria established by the Constitutional Court to determine whether it complies with the Basic Law (according to Article 21, paragraph 2).
“More than 2,500 pieces of evidence support the report’s findings,” the authors of the letter point out. “Therefore, it is not only more current but also much more comprehensive than the data analyzed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [BfV, the domestic intelligence service],” they indicate. “The evidence on which the GFF report is based is overwhelming.” On that basis, the lawyers’ association is clear that a ban procedure against this party before the Constitutional Court “would probably succeed.”
The signatories again urge the Bundestag (the German Parliament) and the Government, in their capacity as political leaders, to “immediately take the necessary steps to file a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court with the aim of declaring AfD unconstitutional and thereby achieving the party’s ban,” the RAV explained in the statement issued this Monday. Otherwise, the jurists fear “serious harm to democracy and a threat to many people if AfD manages to implement its unconstitutional policies.”
Read more Trump assures that talks with Iran will resume this Monday
The president of the RAV and co-author of the open letter, Angela Furmaniak, explained that the Basic Law offers “an instrument that must now be used once and for all.” “The political class must no longer hide behind fallacious arguments but must act before it is too late,” she demanded.
According to the Basic Law, parties “whose objectives or the behavior of their followers aim to undermine or eliminate the liberal democratic order or endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany” will be considered unconstitutional. If this situation occurs, the Constitutional Court can ban them. However, only the German Government, the Bundestag, or the Bundesrat (the Federal Council) can file a request to ban a nationally organized party.
But carrying out a ban process against AfD is very controversial in Germany due to the strong support it has among Germans. It is not a minority party. The Government is cautious and states that it prefers to defeat it at the polls. The party is the leader of the opposition in Parliament, after being the second most voted in the 2025 elections, with more than 20% of the votes, behind the conservatives. Furthermore, on September 6, it will come first in the regional elections of Saxony-Anhalt, according to all polls, which would open the door for it to enter a regional government for the first time.
If it achieves this, it would have access to documents from the German intelligence services, which partly investigate the party as a suspect of right-wing extremism, and also to all documents related to Russia, which has raised alarms about the possibility that this information could end up in the hands close to the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.