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AfD membership in the civil service: Saxony draws clear boundaries!
In Saxony, AfD membership remains no obstacle to public service, while other federal states are planning stricter rules.
AfD membership in the civil service: Saxony draws clear boundaries!
In Saxony, membership in the Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to cause heated discussions, particularly with regard to access to civil service. While the Saxony Interior Ministry has no reservations about AfD members, Rhineland-Palatinate is planning clear restrictions for this group. There, AfD members are to be denied access to the public service, which Interior Minister Michael Ebling (SPD) recently stated in a written instruction about loyalty to the constitution in the recruitment process. All applicants must therefore declare that they do not belong or have belonged to any extremist organization.
Like that diesachsen.de reports, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD as a right-wing extremist effort since May 2023. This ruling has already applied to the Saxon state association since December 2023. Despite this classification, the AfD vehemently defends itself against these allegations and has filed a lawsuit.
Constitutional loyalty and civil service law
The issue of loyalty to the constitution is particularly sensitive. In Saxony, Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) and his colleagues are clear: membership in the AfD has no immediate consequences for civil servants as long as no concrete right-wing extremist behavior is proven. However, there is no obligation for civil servants to disclose their party affiliation. Another focus is on applications for the police, where the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) is involved for no reason.
The need to check the constitutionality of civil servants has been further strengthened by the reform of the disciplinary law from April 1, 2024, as zdf.de reported. This reform ensures that disciplinary measures can be implemented more quickly in order to effectively counter extremist tendencies in the public service.
Reactions to reform and judicial progress
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has emphasized that the issue of extremism in the civil service must be taken too seriously. The aim of the reform is to make it easier to dismiss extremist officials, which has often been a lengthy process in the past. Such a process could take up to four years on average.
Officials who are convicted of sedition lose their civil service privileges. The demand for stricter handling is not entirely unfounded: in 2021, 373 disciplinary measures were imposed in the federal administration, which means a rate of less than 0.2 percent of the approximately 190,000 civil servants.
The discourse about loyalty to the constitution in the AfD is not new. There are legal gray areas and uncertainties, especially when it comes to the admission of AfD members to elected office positions. The legal disputes over the consequences of membership in a party that is classified as unconstitutional have been dragging on for several years lto.de documented.