In the event of a court ruling: East German commissioner for AfD ban application

Courts should decide

Kaiser said that it was important to emphasize that her party was not calling for an AfD ban with the corresponding party conference resolution. "It is a common misunderstanding that the SPD wants to ban the AfD," she said. "What we really want is for the courts to decide whether the AfD should be banned or not." For such a decision to be made, however, an application must first be submitted to the Federal Constitutional Court for review.

There are high hurdles for a party ban procedure in Germany. Only the Bundesrat, the Bundestag or the federal government can apply for the Federal Constitutional Court to deal with the question of whether a nationally active party should be banned or not. The decision on whether or not to ban the party would then lie solely with this court.

Maier also in favor of initiating ban proceedings

In the past, Thuringia's Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) has also repeatedly spoken out in favor of initiating proceedings to ban the AfD - unlike other state ministers or senators in Germany. Berlin Senator of Justice Felor Badenberg (CDU), for example, recently warned the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" newspaper against such proceedings, as they have no clear prospects of success. "In my view, the situation is different for the Thuringian state association. In this respect, I advocate a corresponding application by the Thuringian state government in the Bundesrat so that it can submit a ban application to the Federal Constitutional Court as a constitutional body," she said.

In the debate, there are also repeated discussions about banning individual state associations of the party instead of the AfD as a whole.

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