Former German AfD MP Jens Maier, classified as a right-wing extremist, has been banned from working as a judge and sent into early retirement. The Leipzig court for judges on Thursday declared a similar request from the Saxon Ministry of Justice admissible. Presiding Judge Hanns-Christian John said Maier was no longer acceptable as a judge.
The verdict is not yet legally binding. The 60-year-old’s attorney held out an appeal to the Federal Service Court. The house of Minister of Justice Katja Meier had applied for a pension. The Greens politician argued that anyone considered by the government to be a right-wing extremist can no longer be a credible representative of the judiciary.
Lost seat in 2021 federal election
Maier has been classified as a right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony since 2020, but he has filed a complaint with the Dresden Administrative Court. He had lost his mandate in the 2021 German federal elections and then wanted to return to the judiciary.
During Thursday’s oral hearing, the court reviewed all of Maier’s statements collected by the Justice Department. This included tweets on his account or campaign speeches. A wreath-laying ceremony was also held to commemorate the bombing of Dresden in World War II.
Son of Boris Becker offended
Among other things, a tweet was quoted in which Boris Becker’s son was racially insulted. The terms used in this and other tweets are derogatory and racist, Judge John said in his sentencing. It follows from all statements that Maier is “a person who is not fit for judicial office”. It also does not matter to the court whether it can be irony or satire, as Maier’s lawyer Jochen Lober had also argued.
“Absolutely new legal territory”
Proceedings against judges are generally extremely rare. At the beginning of this year, Minister Meier spoke of “completely new legal territory”. The Ministry should have followed a similar case in Berlin a few weeks ago all the more closely. There, a service court decided that the judge and former AfD member of the Bundestag Birgit Malsack-Winkemann will not retire. The speeches in the Bundestag are protected under the basic law and should not lead to official sanctions, the argument went.
Source: Krone
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