The judge’s service court ruled at the end of 2022: Judge Jens Maier will be retired. The AfD politician has sued against this. Now the Federal Court of Justice has to decide.
It was a deliberate breach of a taboo when, in January 2017, AfD politician Björn Höcke described the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and the German culture of remembrance as a “stupid coping policy” and called for a “180-degree turnaround in remembrance policy.” Höcke’s previous speaker at the time was Jens Maier, judge at the Dresden Regional Court and AfD member. For him it was “a great honor” to be able to sit next to his “hope” Höcke, said Maier at the event in Dresden. He is said to have sometimes called himself “Little Höcke”.
Clearly right-wing extremist choice of words
In his speech in Dresden in 2017, Maier used the term “guilt cult,” a common term among neo-Nazis, to describe the Nazi era. And it wasn’t his only right-wing extremist statement. Maier called migration “the creation of mixed peoples.” And about the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Oslo and on the island of Utøya in 2011, he said on another occasion that he had become a mass murderer out of “despair” over the immigration of “cultural aliens”.
From 2017 to 2021, Maier sat for the AfD in the Bundestag. When his re-election failed, he wanted to return to the judicial profession. The Saxon Justice Minister and Green Party politician Katja Meier initially affirmed a right to return, but then submitted an application for retirement. The Saxon judicial service court at the regional court banned Maier from serving as a judge and decided at the end of 2022 to put him into early retirement.
credibility and lost trust
The court examined whether the public’s trust in Jens Maier as a judge had been destroyed and whether he was no longer credible. The verdict evaluated many of Maier’s tweets, press reports and appearances at political events – i.e. everything that determines Maier’s public image. His membership in the officially dissolved “wing” of the AfD also played a role and the fact that the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified Maier as a right-wing extremist.
A tweet from Maier from 2019 was very important for the court. There he wrote: “If defendants fear ‘AfD judges’, we have done everything right.” Because of statements like these, the judge’s service court came to the conclusion that trust in the judiciary would be greatly damaged if Maier continued to work as a judge.
Maier does not see himself as a right-wing extremist. This is a “political fighting term”. He complained against this designation in the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And because the Saxon Ministry of Justice is referring to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the outcome of its lawsuit must be awaited. Incidentally, he does not see himself as responsible at all: the tweets were written by employees and the satirical tone of his statements must generally be taken into account.
Two procedures with more different Shock device
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH), which is the highest instance responsible for such lawsuits, must now clarify whether the judge service court made the correct decision. In principle, there are high legal hurdles if a judge is to be retired. The independence of judges is a valuable asset.
They are also allowed to be politically active in Germany. However, they must exercise moderation and there must be no doubt that judges behave in a politically neutral manner when carrying out their duties. The limit has been crossed where a judge no longer offers the guarantee that his decisions will be made in accordance with the constitution, impartially and without regard to the person.
The Federal Court of Justice must now answer the question: Did Maier’s right-wing extremist statements mean that the public can no longer have confidence in his administration? So far, only two judges have been retired for similar reasons – one was about involvement in the red light district, the other was about sexual violence against children.
There is also a second case against Maier – a disciplinary case before the judge’s service court in Leipzig. The question there is which official duties he violated through his statements. So it’s about sanctioning misconduct – possibly with serious consequences for the 61-year-old. The Saxon Ministry of Justice has requested that he be fired and that he be deprived of all his salary as a judge.
In any case, the BGH will not be the last court to deal with Maier’s future.