A court in Germany has decided a law student cannot be denied access to a legal internship in the country’s justice system just because the State is accusing him of being a “right-wing extremist” and exhibiting “anti-constitutional tendencies”.
The Superior Administrative Court of the State of Saxony in Bautzen, Saxony, on November 7 overturned a decision by the State’s court system in which they refused John Hoewer, a 38-year-old law student and former aide to politicians of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD), a place as a so-called rechtsreferendar.
That is a German legal trainee or articled clerk who completes a mandatory, two-year practical training period after their first State law exam to become qualified for a role as a judge, lawyer, or public prosecutor.
Hoewer had applied to complete this internship at a Dresden court in early 2025. His application was turned down due to his work with organisations the court claimed belonged to the “hard-right scene”.
Hoewer had been a board member of Ein Prozent, an organisation that describes itself as a “network of patriotic citizens” and “resistance platform” which aims to “give voice to the silent majority of dissatisfied democrats”.
Ein Prozent has been deemed a networking platform for right-wing extremists by the German Office of Constitutional Protection (BfV).
Hoewer also worked with the youth organisation of AfD, Junge Alternative, and served as an aide to AfD politician Sebastian Münzenmaier.
The Superior Administrative Court ruled that these roles could not serve as a basis for denying Hoewer access to the law internship.
The judges based their decision on an earlier ruling of the Constitutional Court of Saxony that had found the State could only refuse applicants a place for the obligatory law internship if they were fighting against the Liberal constitutional order “in a criminal fashion” – which Hoewer had not done.
Before requesting the internship in Saxony, Hoewer had tried his luck in the southwestern German State of Rhineland, where the State administration had also thrown out his application.
The Koblenz Administrative Court in Rhineland upheld the administration’s decision, citing a fictional novel that Hoewer had written as proof of his unconstitutional mindset.
In the book EuropaPowerbrutal from 2021 Hoewer allegedly referred to black people as “monkey boys” and “chimpanzees”.
According to radio station Deutschlandfunk in June, this was the first time a German court used a work of fiction as the basis to uphold such a ban.
