Many of the AfD’s headline proposals for Saxony-Anhalt are either beyond state authority or unconstitutional, but the party can be expected to test the limits of the law. Lawyer and political scientist Joschka Selinger unpacks what’s possible.
Nine years ago, when the Alternative for Germany (AfD) first entered the Bundestag, a major question around the party was whether it could ever gain enough support to govern, even at the state level.
Now, especially following the AfD’s biggest victory to date in Saxony-Anhalt, the question is no longer if the far-right party could win, but what it could do if it actually takes a leading position in a governing coalition.
The Local asked Joschka Selinger, a lawyer and head of the “Democracy and Fundamental Rights” department at The Society for Civil Rights (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte – GFF), about the legal limits to the AfD’s immigration policies, and how the judicial system could be involved in, and affected by, far-right governance.
The Local: The AfD openly talks about big plans for “remigration” and its manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt called for a “deportation offensive” backed by more state funding and new state authorities. To what extent would they be able to implement these proposals?
Joschka Selinger: A “comprehensive remigration” could hardly be implemented by a state government: asylum, immigration and citizenship rules are a matter of federal law.
However, a state government can influence residency law through individual measures, for example through administrative practice, the exhaustion of discretionary powers and the allocation of resources.
This is exactly what can be found in the AfD’s “government program,” such as the demand for a “task force for deportations” as well as ankle shackles or house arrest for refugees.
The Local: Could these efforts be blocked by German courts? If so, how long would that process take?
Selinger: Such individual measures can be challenged before the administrative courts. An administrative court can react very quickly in urgent legal protection, sometimes within days to weeks.
In this way, successes can be achieved against concrete individual administrative acts – such as a specific deportation order – but this doesn’t work to stop an entire policy programme.
The greater danger lies beneath openly unlawful administrative acts: a state government could undermine constitutional and fundamental rights guarantees in the long term through its administrative practice and the allocation of resources.
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The Local: Because many of its policies would be unconstitutional, the AfD is clearly in conflict with Germany’s courts. How could the AfD undermine the courts if it were in power at the state level?
Selinger: A state government would have some levers to influence the composition of courts. These include blocking the election of state constitutional judges, and influencing judge election committees and personnel decisions in the Ministry of Justice.
Exactly this pattern is already evident in Thuringia. The AfD parliamentary group has been blocking the Judicial Election Committee since 2025 in order to force a seat on the Parliamentary Control Commission in return.
In doing so, the AfD parliamentary group is preventing the appointment of new judges for life.
The Local: Speaking of Thuringia, there we have seen the AfD undermine parliamentary processes even without a place in the governing coalition. What could we expect if the AfD fails to join a ruling state government in Saxony-Anhalt, and instead effectively becomes a blocking minority?
Selinger: With more than a third of the seats, the AfD can block all decisions that require a two-thirds majority: e.g. constitutional amendments and the election of state constitutional judges.
The current state parliament has defused this problem and introduced an emergency mechanism that will allow the state constitutional court in the future to propose candidates who can be elected by a simple majority in the event of a blocked election of judges.
READ ALSO: How Germany’s politicians are trying to ‘AfD-proof’ the country
The Local: If the AfD were to find itself in a ruling coalition, and then actively pursue anti-constitutional goals, would that be enough to persuade Germany’s political leadership to seek a party ban? Is there any instance in which authorities would be expected to intervene and initiate a party ban procedure?
Selinger: Only the Federal Constitutional Court can decide on a party ban, and only the Bundestag, Bundesrat and Federal Government are entitled to file an application.
Whether any of these bodies do submit an application is a purely political decision.
In jurisprudence, there is a discussion as to whether there is an obligation to file an application if the indications of a party’s hostility to the constitution are increasing.
However, this is a scientific minority opinion, in practice there is no possibility of obliging the bodies entitled to submit an application.
READ ALSO: ‘Yes, the Alternative for Germany could be banned’ says expert report
The Society for Civil Rights is a non-profit human rights organisation in Berlin. The above interview was conducted via email and translated from German.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
