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Germany’s New Militant Democracy Regime: National Democratic Party II and the German Federal Constitutional Court’s ‘Potentiality’ Criterion for Party Bans

Bundesverfassungsgericht, Judgment of 17 January 2017, 2 BvB 1/13, National Democratic Party II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2018

Gelijn Molier  and
Bastiaan Rijpkema
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European Constitutional Law Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 394 - 409
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© The Authors 2018 

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Footnotes

*

Gelijn Molier is Associate Professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University; Bastiaan Rijpkema is Assistant Professor of Jurisprudence at the same university. This article uses material from: A. Ellian, G. Molier and B. Rijpkema, ‘Weerbare democratie en het probleem van timing: de zaak tegen de NPD’ [‘Militant democracy and the problem of timing: the case against the NPD’], 92(24) Nederlands Juristenblad (2017) p. 1650, and A. Ellian and B. Rijpkema, ‘Militant democracy: political science, law and philosophy. A multidisciplinary approach to democratic self-defence – introduction’, in A. Ellian and B. Rijpkema (eds.), Militant Democracy: Political Science, Law, Philosophy (Springer forthcoming 2018). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

References

1 BVerfG 18 March 2003, 2 BVB 1/01 National Democratic Party I, para. 52; Rensmann, T., ‘Procedural Fairness in a Militant Democracy: The “Uprising of the Decent” Fails Before the Federal Constitutional Court’, 4(11) German Law Journal (2003) p. 1117 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 BVerfG 17 January 2017, 2 BvB 1/13, National Democratic Party II, para. 844.

3 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 1009, see also paras. 846 and 856.

4 Knight, B., ‘Germany’s Constitutional Court rules against banning far-right NPD party’, Deutsche Welle (online), 17 January 2017 Google Scholar.

5 See, on ‘party privilege’, Doehring, K., ‘The Special Character of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany as a Free Democratic Basic Order’, in U. Karpen (ed.), The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany: Essays on the Basic Rights and Principles of the Basic Law with a Translation of the Basic Law (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1988) p. 25 Google Scholar; and Kommers, D.P., The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2nd edn (Duke University Press 1997) p. 218 and 222 Google Scholar.

6 See Schneider, C.J., ‘Political Parties and the German Basic Law of 1949’, 10(3) The Western Political Quarterly (1957) p. 527 at p. 529-530CrossRefGoogle Scholar and E. Klein and T. Giegerich, ‘The Parliamentary Democracy’, in Karpen, supra n. 5, p. 141 at p. 162.

7 The English translations of the German Constitution here and elsewhere in this article are from the translation of C. Tomuschat, D.P. Currie and Donald Kommers, available at <www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/index.html>, visited 19 April 2018.

8 Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 222.

9 Currie, D.P., The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (University of Chicago Press 1994) p. 216 Google Scholar; BVerfG 23 October 1952, E 2,1, Sozialistische Reichspartei p. 10-11 (Mohr Siebeck edition).

10 Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 222; Kingreen, T., ‘Auf halbem Weg on Weimar nach Staßburg: Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgericht im NPD-verbotsverfahren’, 5 Juristische Ausbildung (2017) p. 499 at p. 499-500Google Scholar.

11 Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 222; Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 500.

12 In the Court’s own English translation of NPD II, para. 418, the German concept of ‘Streitbare Demokratie’ is translated as ‘militant democracy’; while the German ‘Wehrhafte’, which amounts to the same principle, is translated as ‘fortified democracy’. The translation is available at the Court’s website, <www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2017/01/bs20170117_2bvb000113en.html>, visited 18 April 2018.

13 BVerfG 17 August 1957, E 5, 85, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, p. 141-142; Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 223.

14 KPD, supra n. 13, p. 141-142.

15 In its own English translation of the NPD II decision, the ‘darauf ausgehen’ criterion is translated as the ‘criterion of “seeking”’, see the cited paragraph below.

16 Currie, supra n. 9, p. 220; P.P.T. Bovend’Eert and M.C. Burkens, ‘De Bondsrepubliek Duitsland’, in Besselink, L.F.M. et al., Staatsrecht van landen van de Europese Unie [Constitutional Law of the Countries of the European Union] (Kluwer 2012) p. 61 at p. 91Google Scholar.

17 KPD, supra n. 13, p. 142: ‘(…) der politische Kurs der Partei [muß] durch eine Absicht bestimmt sein, die grundsätzlich und dauernd tendenziell auf die Bekämpfung der freiheitlichen demokratischen Grundordnung gerichtet ist’; Pieroth, B., ‘Art. 21 GG’, in H.D. Jarass and B. Pieroth (eds.), Grundgesetz fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Kommentar) (C.H. Beck 2007) p. 518 at p. 530-531:Google Scholar ‘Entscheidend ist, ob die Ziele gegenwartig bestehen, nicht wann sie voraussichtlich realisiert werden’; Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 223; Currie, supra n. 9, p. 220-221; Bovend’Eert and Burkens, supra n. 16, p. 91.

18 KPD, supra n. 13, p. 143 (translation by the authors), the full quote in German reads: ‘Eine Partei kann nach dem Gesagten auch dann verfassungswidrig im Sinne des Art. 21 Abs. 2 GG sein, wenn nach menschlichem Ermessen keine Aussicht darauf besteht, daß sie ihre verfassungswidrige Absicht in absehbarer Zukunft werde verwirklichen können’.

19 NPD II, supra n. 2, paras. 585-586. All English translations of NPD II in this article are from the FCC itself, unless stated otherwise. In the Court’s own translation, the term ‘deviating opinion’ is used. This is an unfortunate translation of the original German text, since it suggests that there was some kind of dissenting opinion in KPD (which there was not). Therefore, we adjusted the translation in the fragment quoted above.

20 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 587.

21 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 500, 503; Currie, supra n. 9, p. 221; Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 238.

22 Downes, A.B. and Monten, J., ‘Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization’, 37(4) International Security (2013) p. 90 at p. 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See, in general, on tighter restrictions on political freedom in developing democracies: A. Etzioni, ‘Democracy is not a suicide pact’, The National Interest (online), 7 January 2007, of which the introduction was published in 90 The National Interest (2007) p. 13. Kingreen adds that the West-German post-war approach was based on the combination of a specific reading of the breakdown of Weimar democracy and the fear of Communism in the 1950s, see Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 503 and 504.

24 Kommers, supra n. 5, p. 224, 227; Currie, supra n. 9, p. 221; Bovend’Eert and Burkens, supra n. 16, p. 91.

25 ECtHR Refah Partisi v Turkey, 13 February 2003, 41340/98, 41342/98 and 41344/98, para. 104.

26 See, for a discussion and nuancing of those concerns, Bale, T., ‘Are Bans on Political Parties Bound to Turn Out Badly?’, 5 Comparative European Politics (2007) p. 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rijpkema, B., Weerbare democratie: de grenzen van democratische tolerantie [Militant Democracy: the Limits of Democratic Tolerance] (Nieuw Amsterdam 2015) p. 116–126 Google Scholar.

27 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 583: ‘Müsste der Eintritt einer konkreten Gefahr abgewartet werden, könnte ein Parteiverbot möglicherweise erst zu einem Zeitpunkt in Betracht kommen, zu dem die betroffene Partei bereits eine so starke Stellung erlangt hat, dass das Verbot nicht mehr durchgesetzt werden kann (…)’, see also Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 503.

28 In discussing the dilemma of timing, Brems points to possible ‘public outrage’ as a negative effect of a relatively ‘late’ ban: see Brems, E., ‘State regulation of xenophobia versus individual freedoms: the European view’, 1(4) Journal of Human Rights (2002) p. 481 at p. 482-483CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Ipsen, J., ‘Das Ausschlussverfahren nach Art. 21 Abs. 3 GG – ein mittelbares Parteienverbot?’, 72 Juristenzeitung (2017) p. 933 at p. 935CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who, in short, argues that if one bans a party relatively ‘late’, when it already has seats in parliament, it will likely be said that the applicants are trying to eliminate ‘missliebige politische Konkurrenz’. See, on timing in general, the discussion in Elzinga, D.J., De Politieke Partij en het Constitutionele Recht (Ars Aequi Libri 1982) p. 143-147 Google Scholar.

29 See C. Walter, ‘Interactions between International and National Norms: Towards an Internationalized Concept of Militant Democracy’, in Ellian and Rijpkema (forthcoming 2018).

30 See also Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 505. To be clear, within the German legal system, the German Constitution is of a higher status than the Convention (and other international treaties). However, the FCC leaves no doubt that German Courts have to abide by the Convention and the case law of the ECtHR, unless rights granted by the German Constitution are violated, see Lübbe-Wolff, G., ‘ECtHR and national jurisdiction – The Görgülü case’, 12 Humboldt Recht Forum (2006) p. 138 at p. 145-146Google Scholar.

31 ECtHR 20 June 2009, Case Nos. 25803/04 and 25817/04, Herri Batasuna and Batasuna v Spain, paras. 77-78; ECtHR 30 January 1998, Case No. 133/1996/752/951, United Communist Party of Turkey v Turkey, para. 46. See also Legg, A., The Margin of Appreciation in Human Rights Law: Deference and Proportionality (Oxford University Press 2012) p. 93 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 100, see also Batasuna, supra n. 31, para. 77.

33 Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 104 (italics added), formulated slightly differently, later, in Batasuna, supra n. 31, para. 83.

34 Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 110.

35 See also Batasuna, supra n. 31, para. 83.

36 In further explaining ‘seizing of power’, the Court puts special emphasis on being able to rule without the restrictions of coalition government, see Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 108: ‘The Court accordingly considers that at the time of its dissolution Refah had the real potential to seize political power without being restricted by the compromises inherent in a coalition. If Refah had proposed a programme contrary to democratic principles, its monopoly of political power would have enabled it to establish the model of society envisaged in that programme’.

37 See inter alia M. Steinbeis, ‘Die eventuell, aber nicht potenziell verfassungswidrige NPD’, VerfBlog, 17 January 2017; Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 505-506.

38 See in detail Rijpkema, supra n. 26, p. 159-175. See NPD II, supra n. 2, paras. 538-547, in particular para. 542: ‘The principle of democracy is a constitutive element of the free democratic basic order. Democracy is the form of rule of the free and equal. It is based on the idea of free self-determination of all citizens. Insofar the Basic Law is based on the assumption of the intrinsic value and dignity of the human being who is enabled to be free; at the same time it guarantees the human rights which are the core of the principle of democracy by means of the right of citizens to determine in freedom and equality, by means of elections and other votes, the public authority which affects them in personal and objective terms […]’. For the classic formulation of the German Federal Constitutional Court’s substantive concept of democracy, see SRP, supra n. 9, p. 12-13.

39 Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 100; ECtHR 16 March 2006, Case No. 58278/00, Zdanoka v Latvia, para. 134 (concerning the revoking of voting rights).

40 Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, paras. 105, 124; in NPD II, supra n. 2, the FCC also points to the following cases in this context (see NPD II, para. 614): United Communist Party of Turkey, supra n. 31, para. 59; ECtHR 3 February 2005, Case No. 46626/99, Partidul Comunistilor and Ungureanu v Romania, para. 58; ECtHR 14 December 2010, Case No. 28003/03, HADEP and Demir v Turkey, para. 69 ff; ECtHR 12 April 2011, Case No. 1297/07, Republican Party of Russia v Russia, para. 127.

41 Refah Partisi, supra n. 25, para. 105.

42 European Commission of Human Rights 20 July 1957, Case No. 250/57, KPD v Germany.

43 This does not affect the protection by rights enshrined in, for instance, the German constitution – if those rights afford more protection than the Convention rights, the former have priority, see Art. 53 ECHR.

44 Burbano Herrera, C., ‘Art. 17 EVRM’, in J.H. Gerards et al. (eds.), SDU Commentaar EVRM (Sdu 2013) p. 1250 at p. 1253-1256Google Scholar.

45 See Kingreen’s criticism of ‘Weimar’ as an argument in constitutional discussions, Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 504 (see also n. 52 below).

46 NPD II, supra n. 2, para 843 (translation by the authors), the full German quote reads: ‘Damit bestätigt sich zugleich die Missachtung der freiheitlichen demokratischen Grundordnung durch die Antragsgegnerin. Das nationalsozialistische Gewalt- und Terrorregime war geprägt durch Menschenverachtung und totalitäre Demokratiefeindlichkeit. Demgemäß zieht die bei der Antragsgegnerin feststellbare Verbundenheit mit dem Nationalsozialismus deren Anerkennung der Menschenwürde und des Demokratieprinzips in Zweifel. Auch wenn dies für die Annahme, dass sie gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung gerichtete Ziele verfolgt, allein nicht ausreicht, führt die Wesensverwandtschaft mit dem Nationalsozialismus zumindest zu einer Bestätigung des aus dem “Volksgemeinschafts- und Nationalstaatskonzepts” der Antragsgegnerin folgenden Befundes, dass sie politische Ziele verfolgt, die mit der Menschenwürdegarantie und dem Demokratieprinzip des Grundgesetzes nicht vereinbar sind’.

47 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 608.

48 It could indeed be argued that an invocation of Art. 17 ECHR, as in the KPD case, would not succeed today: see R. de Lange, et al., Risico’s voor de democratie: een juridische verkenning van het gevaar-criterium in het democratisch verdedigingsrepertoire in vijf landen: Duitsland, Frankrijk, Spanje, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en de Verenigde Staten (Erasmus University Rotterdam 2016), Report for the Dutch Ministery of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (presented to the House of Representatives on 29 March 2017) p. 50-51.

49 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 619, the FCC refers to the following literature: ‘Emek/Meier, RuP 2013, S. 74 <77>; Morlok, Jura 2013, S. 317 <323 f.>; Bröhmer, in: Dörr/Grote/Marauhn, EMRK/GG, 2. Aufl. 2013, Kap. 19 Rn. 103 ff.; wohl auch Grimm, in: Meier, Das Verbot der NPD – ein deutsches Staatstheater in zwei Akten, 2015, S. 367 <368>’ (only in the German text).

50 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 619.

51 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 620; Herri Batasuna and Batasuna v Spain, supra n. 31

52 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 621. On the quasi-legal rise to power of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and the integral part the misuse of democratic rights played in its strategy, see Bendersky, J.W., A Concise History of Nazi Germany (Rowman & Littlefield 2014) p. 84 and 146 Google Scholar. See also Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 504, who criticises the FCC for uncritically using the ‘Weimar’ argument in this context. If one wants to use the historical context as an argument, one needs to use more recent results of historical research into Weimar, in which the ‘legality thesis’ (roughly: the view that Weimar democracy was dismantled legally) is criticised, the misuse of party bans by the Nazis is studied and in which the emphasis is (much more) on the lack of a democratic spirit (attitude) in the Weimar of the 1930s.

53 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 621. Contra, Kingreen argues that the new interpretation actually means that a concrete danger is necessary before a party can be banned: ‘Den indem es “konkrete Anhaltspunkte von Gewicht” für die Realisierung der verfassungsfeindlichten Ziele einer Partei fordert, etabliert das Bundesverfassungsgericht nichts anderes als die Voraussetzung einer auf eine individuelle Partei und deren spezifische Verhaltensweisen bezogenen konkreten Gefahr’ (see Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 506).

54 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 585.

55 Interestingly, Kingreen, supra n. 10, argues that the FCC did not go far enough in its use and interpretation of the Strasbourg case law. The FCC could have incorporated the ECtHR’s ‘sufficiently imminent’ criterion, and thereby retreat from its former stance in Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, as both the FCC and the ECtHR share the opinion that a risk calculation should play a role in assessing party bans (see p. 505-506). Contra Kingreen, one could argue, however, that though it is true that the FCC, in its new interpretation of Art. 21(2) Grundgesetz, wants to incorporate a ‘risk calculation’, the FCC (rightfully or not) also, as demonstrated above, wants to add a ‘national’ (German) flavour to the ‘risk calculation’ test by accepting the ‘sufficiently imminent’-criterion in abstract terms, but translating this to a specific ‘potentiality’ criterion when used in Germany (roughly to be understood as: the party’s success should be possible, not probable). Ipsen, on the other hand, contends that the FCC too easily submitted to (its interpretation of) the case law of the ECtHR, since the present threats to democracy and rule of law in several ECHR Member States would make a more lenient approach of the Strasbourg Court to the German militant democracy regime likely, see Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 936.

56 Steinbeis, supra n. 37; S. Jürgensen, ‘Das Parteiverbot ist tot, es lebe der Entzug staatlicher Parteienfinanzierung’, VerfBlog, 30 May 2017; Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 502-504.

57 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 507; Steinbeis, supra n. 37; Jürgensen, supra n. 56, see also Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 935.

58 Steinbeis, supra n. 37; Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 935.

59 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 527, with another ‘hint’ in the discussion of the Strasbourg case law in paras. 624-625; Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 509; Steinbeis, supra n. 37.

60 See, in detail, Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 933.

61 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 933.

62 An official English translation is not yet available.

63 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 933-934.

64 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 507-508.

65 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 934; see also Kingreen, supra n. 10 on both forms of party finance, before the amendment: p. 507-508.

66 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 934-935, who sees several difficulties regarding temporary exclusion (p. 935-396).

67 See the reasoning of the FCC on the substance of the party’s program in NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 844.

68 Chase, J., ‘Bundestag cancels German government funding of non-democratic parties’, Deutsche Welle (online), 22 June 2017 Google Scholar.

69 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 508.

70 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 507, citing Linck, who sees financing such parties as a ‘Pervertierung der wehrhaften Demokratie’.

71 Chase, supra n. 68.

72 Contra, Jürgensen, supra n. 56.

73 NPD II, supra n. 2, paras. 624-625.

74 Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 509.

75 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 935, who nevertheless argues that this measure can never fully replace the party ban, since the other rights a party in parliament still enjoys, even after cutting its state financing, make sure a party can continue its ‘extremist agitation in the centre of political decision-making’; Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 509-510 (discussing ending party financing before the Art. 21(3) Grundgesetz amendment was adopted); Jürgensen, supra n. 56, speaks of the ‘so-called “small party ban”’ (translation by the authors).

76 Ipsen, supra n. 28, p. 935.

77 Rijpkema, supra n. 26, p. 71, 198-199 and 211.

78 NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 585: ‘that the criterion of “seeking” has been met only if there are specific weighty indications suggesting that it is at least possible that a political party’s actions directed against the goods protected under Art. 21(2) GG may succeed (potentiality)’. Kingreen criticises the German Court’s choice of words in this context: ‘Aber wenn keine konkrete Gefahr vorliegen muss, fragt es sich, welche Gefahr das Bundesverfassungsgericht genau meint’ (see Kingreen, supra n. 10, p. 506).

79 See in this context, regarding the NPD: NPD II, supra n. 2, para. 903.

80 See the discussion in Rijpkema, supra n. 26, p. 196-199 and 211, and also Elzinga, supra n. 28, p. 143-147.