Draft agreement seeks to ensure convicted extremists from parties such as the AfD cannot contest elections

Germany’s centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), which are holding coalition talks, have proposed a law that will block people with multiple extremism convictions from standing in elections.

https://archive.ph/yNQwE

    • Hirom@beehaw.orgEnglish
      141·
      1 day ago

      Yes, and that’s how it should be if a politician of any party is convicted for serious offense, eg violence or hatred. Laws should apply equally to all.

      Which means such law should be carefully crafted to prevent its abuse for partisan purpose, supressing the opposition, etc.

      For instance making it a judicial process, not an arbitrary administrative/executive decision. Restricting this to specific well-defined offenses. Making it a time-limited ban, not a lifetime ban.

    • eee (they/them)@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      162·
      1 day ago

      Why would it suppress left politicians? It’s not like any of them have multiple extremism convictions, that’s usually rightwing politicians.

      • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.orgEnglish
        41·
        1 day ago

        Because they might get convicted of something a judge would call left wing extremism. I have zero trust in this system.

          • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            202·
            1 day ago

            You are much smarter than the users I encountered below, who downvoted the following examples I provided:

            It’s no different to a “means test” for voting. It sounds great initially, but falls apart if you dig deeper. The virtue of the means test is determined by who governs the means test. Once you create it, you have created the attack vector, and all the fascists have to do if they weasel their way into power is simply change the terms of the means test — you’ve already completed and normalized the hard part for them. As an example, Trump is currently using a 200 year old law to deport any immigrant an ICE agent chooses, without trial. He’s using this law because it gave the president blanket unilateral powers to apply it as they see fit.

            Another example from the US that has assisted fascism in denying blacks their right to vote; an old law declared anyone convicted of a felony ineligible to vote, then conservatives created the war on drugs to target and persecute blacks and the left. All they had to do was make non-violent drug offences a felony. As a result, millions of blacks have been denied the right to vote. All because the gov could decide who could and couldn’t vote because of X, and any future gov could control the terms of X.

            Extremists need to be defeated, but you can’t defeat fascism with the tools of fascism. If the 2nd example I gave above were never created, America may have never devolved into MAGA/fascism.

            • msage@programming.devEnglish
              21·
              12 hours ago

              I’m not sure I agree with your. Acting like your 2nd example wasn’t created because of the fascist nature of the US government, I have a bridge to sell to you.

              US has never stopped being fascist, they just got beaten by Germany at the world stage with the reveal.

              So no, US was always going to MAGA, mostly because every civic institution was ran over by money.

              And can be stop pretending that fascists follow laws? It’s not like they won’t create new ones if the existing don’t fit their narrative. Or just do whatever, not even pretend to hide behind excuses.

              You are not arming them with laws, you are arming them with making general public needlessly suffer, like no social safety nets, uncontrolled rent hikes, inflation through the roof etc.

      • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
        29·
        1 day ago

        For instance partaking in seating blockades on the routes of Nazi demonstrations is considered left wing “extremism” and could be charged as crime ranging from “coercion” to “breach of public peace / rioting”. Now whether it is convicted as such is a different topic, but for instance many climate activists have been convicted with prison times for glueing themselves to the streets. Many courts consider this to be violent coercion. So making yourself vulnerable and unable to act, but in the way of some car, this is violent extremism in Germany.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      44·
      1 day ago

      In countries where banning parties is a thing, such parties usually have another on the shelf ready to go.

      It’s usually the party leader that gets banned and the party can’t re-register or something.

      So when the leader gives their thanks goodbye speech they usually mention the new party.

      • trollercoaster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        151·
        1 day ago

        Germany’s law on party bans automatically bans successor organisations. And membership in a forbidden organisation is a crime that will bring all sorts of repercussions.