The Bavarian Administrative Court ruled that the AfD must remain under observation by the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. This decision was announced by the court on Wednesday, following a ruling issued on Tuesday.
The AfD had submitted a request allowing an appeal against a judgment from the Munich Administrative Court, which had previously confirmed the state office’s monitoring of the party. The Administrative Court subsequently rejected this petition, concluding that the issues raised by the AfD had already been clarified in prior legal rulings.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution officially designated the AfD as a target for monitoring in June 2022, following an expert opinion from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution issued in 2021. The AfD had previously unsuccessfully challenged this monitoring, first having an emergency application rejected by the Administrative Court, a decision that the Administrative Court then affirmed during the appeal process. The AfD had also failed in the main proceedings case.
The Administrative Court found no grounds to allow the appeal, asserting that the legal prerequisites for state-level monitoring had been settled by the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Administrative Court. The lower administrative court had evaluated the AfD’s arguments, considering freedom of speech and the circumstances, and determined that certain statements made by the AfD exceeded “the limit of permissible criticism of the constitutional system.” The final decision of the Administrative Court is legally binding.
