Federal Constitutional Court: Karlsruhe examines the exclusion of AfD man Schmidt from the parliamentary group

Karlsruhe. The Federal Constitutional Court is examining the exclusion of Bundestag member Jan Wenzel Schmidt from the AfD parliamentary group.

In this case, the highest German court is negotiating for the first time “whether and which constitutional requirements a parliamentary group must meet when it excludes one of its members,” said the presiding judge of the Second Senate, Ann-Katrin Kaufhold, in Karlsruhe.

After disputes in the AfD Saxony-Anhalt, Schmidt accused his party colleagues of nepotism. In an interview with the “Nius” portal, he spoke of a “community of prey”: mandates were moved back and forth, appointments were made among each other and funds were withdrawn. The affair expanded into a nationwide debate about the employment of relatives in the AfD. As a result, Schmidt was expelled from the AfD parliamentary group on March 3, 2026.

He took the matter to the Federal Constitutional Court because he believes his rights as a member of parliament have been violated. Exclusion from a parliamentary group has a significant impact on his ability to participate in parliament, says Schmidt. His goal is not a political dispute with the AfD. Rather, with his lawsuit he wants to have the constitutional limits of such an exclusion clarified in court.

Judge Kaufhold emphasized: “Membership of a parliamentary group is associated with many advantages for members of parliament in parliamentary practice and in political work.” They received a lot of information, some of which had already been processed politically, which they would have had difficulty obtaining on their own. The oral hearing will initially be about determining whether the Basic Law sets conditions for the exclusion of a faction, and if so, which ones. (Ref. 2 BvE 2/26)