All those who apply to work in the public offices will have to declare that they are not part and have not been part, in the last five years, of the “extreme” right party. According to Ebling, this is a necessary measure to protect the democratic state from the internal enemies. But on closer inspection, This choice is extremely seriousas well as dangerous for the country’s democratic estate. In fact, we are not talking about sanctioning individuals for acts contrary to the law, but of hitting an entire range of the population in bulk for its political belonging.
The idea that a state can consider citizens who have supported, voted or played in a party regularly present in Parliament not suitable for public work, and so far never officially banned, It is a dangerous distortion of the very concept of democracy. The estate of a democratic state should be measured precisely from its ability to tolerate even the most critical voices, uncomfortable and polarized, otherwise the risk of sliding towards an authoritarian system masked by a model of defense of the constitutional values becomes concrete.
The measure established by the Government of Rhineania in the first place for ideas and not for actions (which a liberal democracy should be careful not to do). Secondly, he does not judge the conduct of an individual, but his political belonging. In this way, the presumption of innocence of the individual is denied and above all a collective fault is applied. A professor, a doctor, an administrative official: everyone can be excluded a priori only because they have supported Afd.
A ridiculous approach that betrays the rule of law and opens the door to dangerous ideological drifts. What prevents, tomorrow, to ban access to competitions also to those who sympathize for other parties deemed extreme? Who establishes the demarcation between extremes and moderate? The line becomes subtle, and the danger that is proposed is the selection based on political criteria of public employees. It is then difficult not to notice the hypocrisy of the measurement. Nobody, in Germany and elsewhere, has ever forbidden the card of extremist parties to participate in public competitions in bulk. Nor has it ever thought of excluding those who supported radical ideas as long as they had not violated the law. The fact that today the members of a party is extracting en masse on the basis of an alleged “non -constitutional loyalty” shows an alarming double -sisming.
In short, excluding citizens from public life on the basis of their political ideas (despite being expressed in a peaceful and democratic way) It is a gesture that offends the fundamental principles of one of the main EU states and, more generally, of a liberal society. The fight against ideas is fought with the debate and vote, not with the purge. The product of the forced repression of the state is nothing more than polarization, those who today will feel excluded for its ideas will probably only turn on even more radical positions, feeling rejected by the system in which it lives.
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