Court judgment: AfD sometimes wins against Linke in Rostock's dispute!

Court judgment: AfD sometimes wins against Linke in Rostock's dispute!

In a heated legal dispute between the AfD and the left-wing district association in Rostock, the Rostock District Court has now decided that allegations that the AfD MPs would be mocked by symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The conflict began when left-wing politician Dirk Bruhn described the AfD MP Enrico Schult and Horst Förster as "political and human assholes". The district court has classified this term as insulting and declared that such statements cannot be tolerated within the framework of political disputes because they reduce human dignity, how [Stern] (https://www.stern.de/sgesellschaft/mecklenburg-vorpommern/steit-aussagen-afd-klage- against-linke-vorwuerfe-in-rostock-part-35819140.html) reported.

Bruhn had expressed these allegations on April 10th in the state parliament and thereby threatened to take legal action after receiving an order call from Landtag President Birgit Hesse. The affected AfD MPs vehemently rejected the allegations and demanded that the Linken district association's website be deleted. But the chairman of the district association, Sandro Smolka, rejected this.

judicial sentences at a glance

The district court of Rostock decided after a negotiation of one and a half hours that the name is not suitable for a flat -rate application. Future violations of this judgment could contribute a fine of up to 250,000 euros or a prison sentence of up to six months. This is a clear sign that the court believes that the border between freedom of expression and insult has been exceeded here, according to nordkurier.

In addition, the district court of Stralsund rejected similar lawsuits from the AfD parliamentary group against the Linken-Kreisverband Vorpommern-Rügen, while the Schwerin district court did not confirm the lawsuit against Bruhn, but also not decidedly confirmed. This multi -layered legal dispute raises the complex question of where the limits of freedom of expression are

complex delimitation of freedom of expression and insult

The topic of delimitation between freedom of expression and insult also deals with the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court. According to [Hotsmann] (https://hoesmann.eu/abrenzung- opinion freiheit-und-leidigung/), the assessment of whether an expression is to be regarded as offensive requires an exact individual case view. In general, statements that reduce human dignity or represent a abuse are not covered by the fundamental right to freedom of expression.

If the defamation of a person is in the foreground and not a factual discussion about political content, a consideration of fundamental rights is not necessary. In this case, the court seems to have made it clear that such statements are not part of the political discourse.