| I’m not talking about the AfD here, but trying to quickly answer the question how banning political parties can seen as justified in principle: Banning a political party is an important instrument in a wider philosophy known in Germany as “wehrhafte Demokratie” (defensive democracy). This philosophy states that democratic states should have legal tools with which they can defend themselves against people, who want to attack the democratic order itself. Wehrhafte Demokratie is a very well established and accepted concept, here, partially because of a wish to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Weimarer Republik. It’s also justified by the belief that democracy is not just a dictatorship of the majority, but that even a majority of voters is limited in what they can do and that democracy also includes for example the protection of minorities. > biased actors who should already be constrained by the rule of law Banning a political party works by the rules of law. The legal barriers for banning a political party are quite high in Germany. Basically for a ban it must be proven that the party as a whole, not just single member, have the goal to attack key elements of the democratic order itself and that there is a real danger that they could succeed. The last condition can also be a legal reason to only ban a party once it actually gets popular: As long as it is unpopular, judges don’t see the condition fulfilled, that the party presents a real danger, so they won’t ban the party. This happened with Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), which was ruled to be verfassungsfeindlich (an enemy of the constitution), but not banned because it was so ineffective und unpopular. |