The NPD and the Petition to Ban it

Interior Minister Otto Schily shows files with evidence against the NPD prior to a press conference in Berlin Jan. 31, 2001.

How does the government ban a political party?

According to Gerd Seidel, a constitutional law expert, "The constitutional court must find that the party displays an aggressive and confrontational attitude to the established free democratic order. In other words, it must have rejected the basic principles of [the German] constitution."

In post-war German history, such a ban on a political party has been imposed only twice. In 1952, the Socialist Imperial Party, or SRP, was forbidden because its political program was deemed too close to that of the Nazis. Four years later, the Constitutional Court banned the Communist Party of Germany, which campaigned for what it called "a dictatorship of the proletariat."

The decision to make a party illegal is never taken lightly as it is one of the most extreme legal measures a nation can take.

Gerd Seidel: "We live in a representative democracy. The essence of this system is the freedom to express different opinions, but also in the ability of different view points to co-exist. Political parties are a vital element of this system."

The process to ban the NPD began on January 31, 2001 when both houses of Parliament and the Chancellor’s cabinet agreed to submit an application to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

According to the German constitution, only the constitutional court can prohibit a political party if it finds that the party’s activities and principles endanger "the free and democratic order of the country."

Over the course of several hearings, the court will determine whether the government’s petition for a ban is justified. The NPD will then be allowed to respond to the petition and to defend itself. After the hearings, the judges will evaluate whether the actual behavior and publicity campaigns of the party have violated the principles of the German constitution.

If the court determines this to be the case, a ban will most likely be forthcoming. The party would be legally disbanded, forbidden to form a successor organization, and all elected NPD representatives would forfeit their positions.

The legal process leading to such a ban is quite complex, and it could take years before the legality of the NPD is actually decided upon. A technicality, such as the one that arose this week, over the cooperation between a witness and the secret service, could set the process back an year or more.