New legal report brands AfD unconstitutional, reigniting German party ban debate

A legal expert report released on 25 June 2026 by the Berlin-based NGO Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF) has found the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to be unconstitutional, intensifying the long-running debate over whether to seek a party ban. The 8-author report, compiled over 13 months from more than 2,500 public sources, argues the party systematically undermines the free democratic basic order through its political concept and actions.

The report's two pillars

Project leader Bijan Moini said the AfD violates both the democratic principle and the human dignity guarantee enshrined in the Basic Law. The report documents 220 instances of AfD politicians threatening criminal prosecution of opponents, including a 2017 speech by deputy federal spokesman Stephan Brandner calling for the ballot to become an "arrest warrant" against then-Chancellor Merkel, and a 2025 demand by MP René Springer that half of the pandemic-era government be led away in handcuffs.

The AfD wants to criminally prosecute politicians from other parties. It calls for arrest warrants, the dock, prison sentences for decisions it disagrees with politically. Politically motivated prosecution clearly violates the democratic principle.

On human dignity, the report says the AfD's "ethno-cultural" concept of the people creates different classes of humans, devaluing Germans with a migration background, Muslims, asylum seekers, and trans people. Moini stated the party's political concept is directed at "exclusion, denigration and far-reaching legal devaluation" of these groups.

Political reactions

Thuringia's Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) said the time had come for "concrete steps to initiate a ban procedure" and called for a consensus among all democratic parties. SPD co-leaders Bärbel Bas and Lars Klingbeil urged security agencies to examine the new evidence, with Bas stating that when democracy is threatened, "all democrats are obliged to act."

In my view, the moment has now come at the latest to take concrete steps to initiate a ban procedure. Further waiting would contradict the imperative of a defensive democracy.

Green faction leaders Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge wrote to the heads of the Union, SPD and Left parties requesting talks on a ban motion. Haßelmann said the AfD's "ever more blatant radicalisation and its undisguised rejection of the free democratic basic order cannot be overlooked." Hamburg's Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD), current chair of the Interior Ministers' Conference, called the report a "serious contribution" that must be assessed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Legal hurdles and court context

The Cologne Administrative Court ruled in an urgent decision in February 2026 that while there is sufficient certainty the AfD pursues efforts against the free democratic basic order, the party is not yet shaped by them to an extent that an overall anti-constitutional tendency can be established. The main proceedings are pending. The AfD is currently classified as a "suspected case" by the domestic intelligence agency.

A ban procedure can only be initiated by the Bundestag, Bundesrat or federal government. In January 2025, 124 of 733 MPs supported a ban motion, but no vote followed before the new parliament was elected. No political majority currently exists at any of the three levels.

Election backdrop

The report lands 73 days before the Saxony-Anhalt state election, where polls show the AfD leading and within reach of an absolute majority. The GFF authors say their work is the "most comprehensive and legally demanding" assessment to date and that a ban application would likely succeed before the Federal Constitutional Court.