Germany’s federal states have launched a fresh bid to ban the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), a decade after the last attempt failed at Germany’s highest court.
The initiative, filed by the 16 federal states in Bundesrat upper chamber, accuses the party of being a racist, neo-Nazi party that is working to undermine Germany's democratic order. Unlike a decade ago, however, the federal government has declined to join the case.
In 2003 the constitutional court threw out a joint NPD ban application based in part on information collected by paid informers in the far- right scene. The court said it could not be ruled out that, in gathering the information, the informers had acted as agent provocateur in the far-right scene.
With an eye on Nazi-era outlawing of political opponents, the constitutional court has set a high legal hurdle for banning political parties in Germany. Backers of the Bundesrat application, filed yesterday in Karlsruhe, say they have not drawn on informers for this application.
The new initiative came after revelations that an underground neo-Nazi cell was responsible for a decade-long series of killings. The Bundesrat application sees a “recognisable affinity” between the NPD and the Nazi Socialist Party.
