Germany court rejects attempt to ban far-right racist party

Xenophobic group ‘too insignifcant to pose a real threat’

KARLSRUHE, GERMANY // Germany’s highest court yesterday overturned an attempt to ban the far-right NPD party, arguing that the xenophobic fringe outfit is too insignificant to spell a real threat to the democratic order.

“The NPD pursues anti-constitutional goals, but there is currently no concrete evidence to suggest that it will succeed,” said judge Andreas Vosskuhle. The case marks the second failed attempt to outlaw the National Democratic Party of Germany, with the latest launched by the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament which represents Germany’s 16 states.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government supported the case.

Racist killings by the group had prompted Germany to crack down on right- wing extremism. Since then, the NPD has lost its remaining seats in state parliaments, retaining just one representative, Udo Voigt, in the European Parliament.

Polls now credit the NPD with about a 1 per cent support rate.

But the vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, voiced dismay at the ruling, warning that it could encourage extremists across Europe.

“How can it be that those who cheerfully celebrate the Holocaust and provoke new episodes of hatred in many municipalities may remain in the democratic spectrum?” he said.

“This reality- blind and untimely decision sends a disastrous signal to Europe, where far-right and right-wing populists have found new partnerships and are now trying to transform the fear and insecurity of the population into hatred and aggression.”

“The party’s battle against the democratic order would need to surpass a threshold to warrant prohibition,” said judge Vosskuhle, adding that the threat had to be credible. Only two political parties have been outlawed since 1945: the SRP, a Nazi successor party, in 1952, and the West German Com- munist Party in 1956. Founded in 1964 as a successor to the neo-fascist German Reich Party, the NPD calls for “the survival and continued existence of the German people in its ancestral central European living space”.

For Germany’s federal council, the group shares essential characteristics with the Nazis, creating a climate of fear.

Germany’s intelligence services classify the ultranationalist NPD, which has about 6,000 members, as a far-right party. But things have changed in German politics since the launch of the second case against the NPD in 2013. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) right-wing populist party has brushed the NPD to the fringes and could have members elected to the parliament in Berlin this year – something no similar party has managed since 1945.

The the centre- left Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said that banning the NPD risked sending a signal to autocrats abroad, who could point to the decision to justify crushing the opposition.