German federal court temporarily lifts Nancy Faeser's ban on Compact Magazine, dealing the Interior Minister and her deranged crusade 'against the right' a humiliating defeat

Sometimes, there is good news.

On 16 July, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser banned the AfD-adjacent magazine Compact. It was the latest and most spectacular move in Faeser’s openly illiberal campaign of political repression “against the right,” which she first unveiled in February. Faeser’s plan is to stifle opposition parties and ward off the consequences of her own unpopular politics by “treat[ing] right-wing extremist networks in the same way as organised crime,” and confronting “those who mock the state … with a strong state.”

Accordingly, in a show of state force, police stormed Compact editorial offices and seized all of the magazine’s assets, right down to the office furniture. They also sent a squadron of masked special operations police to the house of Compact founder Jürgen Elsässer:

In one stroke, it became illegal even to display any of the magazine’s logos, in this, the freest and most democratic Germany of all time.

In theory, Article 5 of the German Basic Law guarantees the freedom of the press, but as we’ve seen many times here at the plague chronicle, there is an ever-growing gulf between legal theory and daily practice in the Federal Republic. Faeser circumvented these traditional protections by appealing to the German Vereinsrecht, or the ‘Law on Associations.’ This statute permits the Interior Ministry to ban “associations whose purposes or activities … are directed against the constitutional order.” Faeser’s ban represented an attack on press freedom through the back door, in other words. It was the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that any Interior Minister had used this law against a periodical with such reach and political significance.

Elsässer promptly filed suit with the Federal Administrative Court, and today he won a substantial victory. The judges have lifted the ban and will permit Elsässer to continue publishing while his suit against the Interior Ministry is pending. He is subject only to certain conditions that are intended to preserve evidence for litigation. The suit will take years to resolve, so for now, Elsässer and Compact are safe. They will resume operations as soon as the police return all of their seized computers and files.

This is a humiliating defeat for the Marshmallow Minister, who took personal ownership of the ban and released a lengthy statement raving bizarrely about “spiritual arsonists” and lauding her “hard blow against the right-wing extremist scene.” In a just world, this bloated woman would resign now.

As the FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki said last month:

If the ban is overturned … then the current Federal Interior Minister, in my opinion, no longer has the legitimacy to continue in office … Nancy Faeser is also the Minister for the Constitution. Someone who is supposed to uphold the constitution but at the same time breaks it and behaves unlawfully can no longer fulfil this function. That is a matter that Ms Faeser should take very seriously.

Unfortunately, the court’s ruling is far from an unalloyed victory. To begin with, it is only a temporary judgement, issued because the judges consider that Elsässer’s suit has substantial chances of success. The court declined to lift the ban against Compact’s video affiliate, ConspectFilm, and also turned turned down parallel requests for relief from various employees who had filed suit along with Compact.

What is worse, the court confirms that Faeser’s use of the Vereinsrecht to ban a press outlet was perfectly in order. This heretofore legally doubtful tactic will now become a further tool in the arsenal of the Interior Ministry to squeeze dissident media organisations. The court also sees “abundant indications” that Compact “takes a combative and aggressive stands towards basic constitutional principles.” The judges worry merely that an outright ban may not have been the correctly “proportional” response.

Still, I will take any victories, wherever I can get them. They have become very rare these days.