Alternatives and criticism

In Germany militant democracy is an accepted constitutional principle. The ‘eternity clause’ makes it a central component of the German Constitution, the Grundgesetz. German jurists worked on the abstract idea of militant democracy to develop a legally workable doctrine. ¹ In the first case in which a party was prohibited by the Federal Constitutional Court, the court indicated that the founders of the constitution had made a fundamental choice for a substantive interpretation of the concept of democracy: a ‘militant democracy’. ² The German Constitution is therefore not neutral when it comes to values. ³ Democracy is a ‘set of values’, which must be defended in practice against its enemies. ⁴ Militant democracy has been incorporated to varying degrees in other states, such as Italy, Israel and Spain, as well as France ⁵ ; the president has the option of taking special measures if the institutions of the French Republic are threatened. ⁶ And perhaps even more importantly, in a large number of states parties really are banned. ⁷