Oldenburg Administrative Court rejects urgent applications from AfD politicians against their exclusion from district administrator elections

What the judges decided

The competent judges at the Lüneburg Administrative Court found that the election committees had made their decisions in a manner not open to objection. There were no apparent procedural errors that could have justified the urgent applications succeeding.

According to the AfD parliamentary group, Christoph Sichert is a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament and was nominated by the Friesland district association as a candidate for the office of district administrator. Stephan Bothe is a member of the Lüneburg district council and had also applied for candidacy.

With the urgent applications, the two politicians sought to compel the election committees to reassess their eligibility. These interim orders would have been necessary to secure their participation in the district administrator elections planned for September.

Impact on the district administrator elections

The Lüneburg Administrative Court rejected the applications as unfounded. The courts’ reasoning was based essentially on the assessment that the election committees had not exceeded the scope of discretion available to them. The two applicants therefore remain excluded from the elections.

The decision is not yet final. The applicants are free to file an appeal with the Higher Administrative Court within one month after service of the ruling. Until a decision is made there, however, the election committee decisions remain effective.

According to information from the proceedings, the election committees relied in substance on findings from the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and on previous statements by the applicants that gave rise to doubts about their loyalty to the constitution. The courts did not challenge this assessment in the interim proceedings.

Legal assessment and next steps

The district administrator elections in the districts concerned are scheduled for the autumn. If the election committees do not allow substitute nominations, voters in the constituencies concerned may go to the polls with a reduced field of candidates. AfD party bodies at district level are currently considering possible further steps.

Legal experts point out that election committees have a wide scope of discretion when assessing loyalty to the constitution, and that courts will correct this only in the event of obvious errors. The rejection of the urgent applications therefore does not represent a final assessment of the substantive issues.

The case numbers of the proceedings before the Lüneburg Administrative Court are B 4195/26, along with additional proceedings concerning Stephan Bothe that have not been made public. Both politicians announced through their lawyers that they would examine the further legal options available to them.