Office for the Protection of the Constitution may monitor AfD in Bavaria
The intelligence agency decided in June 2022 to observe the AfD as a whole party and made this public in September 2022. According to the administrative court, the observation of the AfD and the public disclosure at that time were permissible and still are.
The AfD state association filed a lawsuit against the observation and also filed an urgent application. From the party's perspective, the state protection agency was not authorized to observe the entire party.
The urgent application was rejected by the Munich Administrative Court in April 2023, and the AfD's appeal against this was also rejected by the Bavarian Administrative Court of Appeal. This court criticized only formulations in the press release of the Constitutional Protection Agency, which gave the impression that the AfD as a whole was securely extremist. The Administrative Court now decided in the main proceedings.
In May, the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Administrative Court in Münster decided that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution may classify the AfD as a right-wing extremist suspect case and continue to observe it.
The AfD's lawsuit against the secret service's observation of the entire party was initially handled by the Munich Administrative Court in Bavaria. Despite the National Association's contention that the Bavarian state protection agency lacked authorization for such extensive monitoring, the administrative court upheld its permissibility. Moreover, the Administrative Court is now deliberating on the main proceedings of this case, involving the protection of the constitution and the AfD in Bavaria.
