Can Berlin declare Alternative for Germany (AfD) unconstitutional? What would be the consequences of banning the far-right party, the Bundestag’s largest opposition force? Those questions have recurred in Germany in recent years as the radical party has grown electorally. Upcoming regional elections in the east of the country, where polls give AfD a chance to govern for the first time, have revived the debate among politicians and jurists about the options for containing a party they regard as a threat to democracy.
The Social Democrats (SPD), which govern Germany in coalition with the center-right CDU and CSU, reopened the issue this August in an article by SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil in the weekly Die Zeit. “Independent scholars have shown that AfD is planning to destroy our democracy and rule of law,” Klingbeil wrote. “The banning of the party is not only an option, it is a democratic duty to protect our country.”
The SPD leader was referring to conclusions in a report published in June by eight jurists from the NGO Society for the Protection of Freedom Rights (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte, GFF), which finds that AfD violates this clause of Article 21 of the Basic Law: “Parties that, by reason of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional.”
https://archive.is/ijwTo#selection-475.0-487.213