Extremism: AfD fails before Federal Administrative Court

The Federal Administrative Court has rejected appeals by the AfD regarding its classification as a suspected right-wing extremist party. The court in Leipzig announced this. This makes three decisions by the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Administrative Court (OVG) from last year legally binding. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) assumed in an assessment that the party and its dissolved youth organization, Junge Alternative, were suspected of pursuing anti-constitutional activities. The officially defunct collective movement Der Flügel (The Wing) is considered a confirmed right-wing extremist movement.

Based on this classification, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution was able to monitor the AfD using intelligence resources. The AfD challenged this classification, initially before the Administrative Court in Cologne and later on appeal to the Higher Administrative Court in Münster. The Higher Administrative Court in Münster had refused leave to appeal its rulings. The AfD challenged this with so-called non-admission complaints, which have now been rejected by the Federal Administrative Court.

In appeals against the denial of leave to appeal, the court is "limited to examining the grounds for admission presented in due form and within the deadline," the Federal Administrative Court stated. The contested decisions of the Higher Administrative Court in Münster were therefore not fully reviewed. In its oral reasoning for the judgment in May 2024, the Higher Administrative Court stated that in the AfD case, there are sufficiently strong circumstances that indicate the party's efforts to violate the free democratic basic order.

Since then, another legal dispute has arisen between the party and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. At the beginning of May of this year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution upgraded the AfD from a suspected case to a "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor." The AfD is also taking legal action against this. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has therefore put the upgrade on hold pending a court decision in this matter.