The Federal Ministry of the Interior aims to ban the far-right magazine Compact. However, a first attempt failed in 2024. Now, the Federal Administrative Court is set to make a decision, with a verdict expected within this week.
When and Why Was Compact Banned?
The Compact magazine GmbH and its affiliated organization, Conspect Film GmbH, are led by activist Jürgen Elsässer. In July 2024, a ban was first issued, leading to the confiscation of the organization’s assets. The Federal Ministry of the Interior justified the ban by stating that Compact was acting against the constitutional order. The GmbH has anti-constitutional objectives and adopts an aggressive and combative stance to achieve them. The ministry further elaborated that Compact disseminates “anti-Semitic, racist, minority-hostile, historical revisionist, and conspiracy-theoretical content.”
The ministry also noted that the Compact magazine GmbH had been under surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution for a long time, being classified as a confirmed far-right extremist association at the end of 2021.
Why Was the Execution of the Ban Suspended?
The companies involved and several individuals filed a lawsuit and an urgent request with the Federal Administrative Court against the ban. In August 2024, this urgent request was partially successful. As a result, the magazine can continue to be published temporarily until a decision is made regarding the lawsuit.
The court justified its urgent decision by stating that the likelihood of success for the lawsuit was uncertain. It could not conclusively determine at that point whether Compact was indeed acting against the constitutional order. Although there are indications of violations of human dignity in specific texts, particularly when citizens with migration backgrounds were disparaged, the court had doubts about whether those sections of text were so predominant that a ban would be justified.
Was This an Early Determination for the Pending Verdict?
No, because in the urgent proceedings, the court had to weigh the potential consequences against each other. It concluded that the interest of Compact in suspending the immediate execution of the ban outweighed the public interest in such immediate enforcement.
If the magazine was not allowed to be published, and the ban later turned out to be unlawful, it would be extremely difficult to resume operations.
The court also pointed out that it had only accessed a small portion of the other publications thus far. Further insights into other activities, such as events, could also emerge from the confiscated evidence. Copies of the evidence may continue to be reviewed.
How Does Compact Argue?
Compact deems the ban as disproportionate and insists that the necessary conditions for such an action were not met. Furthermore, a press and media company should not be banned based on the associations law.
However, the court concluded in its urgent ruling that the latter is generally possible: a ban on associations as a measure of “preventive constitutional protection” can also be issued against media organizations, it stated.
When Will There Be a Verdict in Leipzig?
The date is not yet established. Temporarily, the court has set Tuesday as the hearing day. Additional hearing days may occur on Wednesday and Thursday if necessary. The decision could be made then, but it is also possible for a later announcement date to be scheduled.