The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has filed a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court against its classification as a “suspected right-wing extremist party” by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). Party co-leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel confirmed on Thursday, August 21st, that the AfD would use all legal avenues “to protect itself and, above all, its members from these baseless state insults by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”
The dispute dates back to 2021, when the BfV classified the AfD as a “suspected case.” Since then, the party has launched multiple legal challenges but repeatedly failed in the courts. On May 13th, 2024, the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia dismissed the party’s lawsuits, ruling the classification legal.
The AfD accused the judges of failing to address the facts adequately and of violating procedural law, but these claims also failed before the Federal Administrative Court in July. The Leipzig court declared the lower court’s rulings legally binding and excluded further appeal.
With this path closed, the party is now turning to Karlsruhe. According to a press release, the AfD has filed “a comprehensively substantiated constitutional complaint” alleging multiple violations of fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and the right to a legal judge. Chrupalla and Weidel emphasized, “The decision of the Münster Higher Administrative Court cannot stand in a constitutional state.”
The contested classification is based on a 1,000-page report compiled by the BfV in 2021. The report relied exclusively on public materials, such as party manifestos, speeches, and social media posts, to determine whether there were “actual indications of efforts against the free democratic basic order.” It cited statements that, in the agency’s view, violated principles such as human dignity. The court found that citing real statistics of immigrant women having a much higher reproductive rate than German women to point out the danger to the relative shrinking of the German population is problematic and, apparently, should not be allowed.
Islam-critical rhetoric was also considered problematic. The report argued that AfD’s positions on banning muezzin calls (Islamic calls to prayer) and minaret construction demonstrated a “fundamental tendency directed against Islam.”
The BfV stressed that not just isolated statements, but evidence “of sufficient weight and present in sufficient quantity,” was necessary to justify the classification.
Separately, another legal battle is underway over the agency’s more recent assessment. Since spring 2023, the AfD has been classified as “certainly right-wing extremist” by the BfV. That case has not yet been decided.
The constitutional complaint thus represents the AfD’s last available legal avenue against the original “suspected case” classification, while an even broader confrontation over the party’s current designation is still to come. The German state continues to silence and sideline the party, which, in turn, seems to gain popularity day by day as people are fed up with immigrant crime in the country and losing faith in the current establishment, turning to AfD to solve Germany’s problems.
