German Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Outlaw Far-Right Party

[TexasTowelie]

Source: AP

BERLIN — Germany's supreme court on Tuesday rejected a bid by lawmakers to outlaw a far-right party accused of promoting a racist and anti-Semitic agenda.

Andreas Vosskuhle, chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court, said that even though the party had unconstitutional goals, "there are currently no concrete indications ... that its actions will lead to success."

The German parliament's upper house had applied for the ban at the end of 2013.

Vosskuhle, in explaining the verdict, mentioned the party's irrelevance , pointing out it had only a single seat in the European Parliament and that the NPD's election results have in recent years been "on a low level."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/01/17/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-far-right.html

[DetlefK]

1. Brutal infighting, lack of funds, voters leaving for the new right-wing party AfD...

The NPD has been on the road to irrelevance for a few years now.

[Calista241]

2. Outlawing your political opponents sounds like a horribly bad idea.

Even if, in this case, those opponents are the most vile people imaginable.

[cstanleytech]

3. Oh I dont know, if its tailored to only address parties that want to do away with Constitutional

rights and or protections I could see it being a good thing.
Granted it could be abused but if you have some sort of appeals process that people can use and apply to allow the party to form say every 5 to 10 years it might work out.