The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has dismissed a complaint by former NPD MP Udo Pastörs. As a member of parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Pastörs deliberately made falsehoods to slander Jews and deny the Holocaust. This was not covered by the right to freedom of expression in the European Convention on Human Rights, the judges declared unanimously on Thursday in Strasbourg. They confirmed decisions by German courts.
The former NPD faction leader in the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was sentenced in 2012 to eight months probation and a fine of 6,000 euros. Pastors had spoken in a parliamentary speech in January 2010 by the so-called Holocaust and an "Auschwitz projection" by democratic parties. A commemorative event for the victims he criticized as "affected theater" and the memory of the dead as a "one-sided school of guilt".
The Strasbourg judges now ruled that Pastors had "purposely said the untruth to defame Jews." His remarks did not fall under the protection of freedom of expression because they "oppose the values of the convention itself". Therefore, his conviction is not a violation of the Human Rights Convention.
Until the Federal Constitutional Court
Pastörs was in Germany against his conviction to the Federal Constitutional Court pulled. The Karlsruhe judges rejected his appeal in August 2014. At this time he was temporarily head of the NPD.
However, the Strasbourg judges disagreed on a second allegation by Pastor. The politician had seen his right to an impartial tribunal in Germany violated, since two of the judges, who had decided in different cases in his case in 2012 and 2013, were married.
Three of the seven judges of the Court of Human Rights found Pastors in the complaint right. His fears that impartiality might be in jeopardy have not been adequately addressed, these judges declared. Since they were in the minority vote, but this has no legal consequences. It is not uncommon for the judges in Strasbourg to make public their differing views following a ruling.
