AfD on democracy and the state

The AfD wants judicial selection committees, rather than the justice ministry alone, to decide on hiring and promoting judges. It also backs federal initiatives to free public prosecutors from ministerial instructions.

Today the justice ministry decides who becomes a judge. The AfD wants to change that. A committee should choose the judges. Prosecutors should also no longer get orders from the ministry.

According to the platform, the government can indirectly steer court rulings through personnel decisions and influence investigations and indictments through instructions. The state constitution is to be amended to allow the committees. Alongside judges and prosecutors, lawyers admitted in Saxony are to be adequately represented on them. The AfD also favors courts and prosecutors' offices close to citizens and sufficient staff and resources for the judiciary.

The AfD wants to expand direct democracy in Saxony and sharply reduce the number of signatures required. In addition, citizens would be able to repeal laws passed by the state parliament through a vote.

The AfD wants citizens to vote on laws more easily. Fewer signatures should be needed for this. Citizens should also be able to cancel laws made by the state parliament. This is called a repeal referendum.

A popular motion would need only 10,000 signatures instead of 40,000. For the petition that leads to a referendum, the threshold would fall from 450,000 to 200,000. The procedures for popular motions, petitions, and referendums are to be improved overall. A repeal referendum, allowing the people to overturn state laws, would be newly introduced.

The AfD wants to slow migration away from rural areas and give counties and rural municipalities more money and more room to decide for themselves. In the program's view, the state has handed them too many tasks without compensation.

The AfD wants to strengthen villages and small towns. Rural towns should get more money. They should be able to decide more on their own. Applying for funding should become easier.

With better funding, municipalities are to invest independently in infrastructure and other tasks. Funding procedures are to be stripped of red tape so that towns do not depend on ministries and EU bodies. Political decisions are to focus more on rural areas and the surroundings of urban centers, with better links between city and countryside. The state planning law would also be changed: the top planning authority would have to present a public spatial development report with defined content to the state parliament at least every five years.