Executive disobedience

Rarely have stage spectacle and politics been so closely intertwined. In the Thuringian state parliament, the AfD faction dismantled the constituent session with destructive glee. And while people were still waiting for the Constitutional Court's decision on Friday, the play ‘Ein Volksbürger’ (A Citizen of the People) outlined in the large hall of the Federal Press Conference in Berlin what can happen when democracy's enemies actually come to power through elections. The simulation, conceived by constitutional lawyer Maximilian Steinbeis and directed by Nicola Hümpel in the format of press conferences, also made it clear how helpless and clueless defenders of democracy can appear when the other side acts cleverly.

Bulwark against the right

There is also plenty of DaDa in his performance. Arndt sells himself as a bulwark against the right – the AfD only came third in this fictional state election with a good 10 per cent, as a bar chart briefly shows. But he pursues a fairly right-wing policy. He organises administrative failures to drive even refugees who have been granted the right to stay by the courts out of the Free State. The federal government intervenes, unimpressed, and pushes for the enforcement of federal laws. This leads to Arndt's big show: he is not a lapdog who allows laws to restrict his political actions, but a minister-president who only implements the will of the people.

That is the big question of the evening: does power come from the people, or is the constitution the basis for the exercise of power? What happens when the call for remigration, which DA voters emphasised with their crosses on the ballot paper, conflicts with internationally binding laws for the protection of threatened people?

The second big question of the evening is: How do you deal with a state government that openly disregards the law? In the play, this approach is called ‘executive disobedience.’ There are examples of this. Morgane Ferru, one of the journalists, briefly interrupts the press conference to remind the audience of Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder's refusal to implement a decision by the Munich Administrative Court on diesel driving bans. The Bavarian state government was even fined for this. In 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) saw no grounds for imposing coercive detention on Söder because this is not enshrined in the German legal system.

Nevertheless, the so-called federal coercion, Article 37 of the Constitution, provides a means for the Federal Government and the Bundesrat to send a representative, with the support of the federal police, to a renegade member state to enforce federal laws. There are historical examples of this. In 1932, the then Reich government deposed the Social Democratic Prime Minister of Prussia.

He had lost his majority after the state elections that same year, and the election winners, the NSDAP (37 per cent of the vote) and the KPD (13 per cent), prevented the formation of a new state government. There were riots and street battles until the National Socialists seized power completely a year later. ‘Ein Volksbürger’ brings the Berlin of 1932 and the Erfurt of 2024 into eerie proximity.

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