Nine months after the “Boys' Day” in 2012, the Thuringian police have now recognized the illegality of their deployment at the opening rally of the counter-demonstration in Eisenach. The State Police Directorate made a corresponding statement to the Meiningen Administrative Court (VG).
Even before the start of the demonstration with around 400 participants against the meeting of the German fraternity on June 2, 2012 in Eisenach, the police had cordoned off the location of the opening rally on the Eisenach market square with emergency services, vehicles and so-called “Hamburg grilles”. Because this has a deterrent effect and therefore represents a blatant interference with the fundamental right to freedom of assembly, the now 30-year-old person who registered the demonstration filed a lawsuit before the Meiningen Administrative Court on June 7, 2012 to have the measure declared illegal. The applicant had neither been informed of a viable legal basis for the barrier nor was there a danger forecast justifying the barrier. The assembly participants who waited in front of the bars were without exception peaceful.
“The attempt to control peaceful participants in a registered protest event in this way right at the beginning of the event is, in my experience, unprecedented,” says the Göttingen lawyer Sven Adam, who was there at the time and legally represents the applicant, explaining the significance of the procedure. The constitutional right to assemble peacefully and without weapons in the open air also includes free access to the assembly. This access was not guaranteed. The state police department has now recognized this and is therefore bowing to the right to assembly for good reason. “It is unfortunate, but if legal steps are the only way to remind some police decision-makers to comply with the law and order even in the situation at the Boys' Day, we will have to continue this and, if necessary, even use urgent proceedings to ensure that “Ensure fundamental rights ,” concluded Adam.
If you have any questions, Attorney Adam is available using the contact details provided.
