The Ban of Political Parties – An Analysis of the Criteria Developed by the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights and their Interconnection

It is possible to ban political parties in many modern democracies. However ideologically extreme they may be, their ban constitutes a violent interference in the political sphere and should therefore only be applied in particularly justified cases. The article analyses the relevant case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. It comes to the conclusion that the jurisprudence of the two courts is closely linked and builds on each other. Moreover, by today’s standards, it is not possible to ban a political party that has an unconstitutional programme, even if it tries to implement it aggressively and violently, as long as it is not in a position to actually implement it, i.e. it does not have the necessary political power.