Raid in Saxony: Court condemns raid on left-wing housing project as unconstitutional!

The backstory

One person was accused of having, together with another person, used a paint brush and wallpaper paste to attach posters with a call for an anti-fascist demonstration to the entrance door of the AfD office, a telephone booth, bus stops and information boards in the summer of 2021. The accused person is also said to have attached some graffiti with the tenor of the demonstration as well as a bridge pillar, a bus shelter and a wall with various motifs in red With regard to the posters and graffiti, which were all removed, the police assumed a total damage of around 1,000 euros.

The mega raid on April 27, 2022

In the spring of 2022, the Chemnitz district court not only ordered a search of the accused person, but also ultimately issued 14 search warrants, almost all of them against non-accused third parties who lived in the left-wing housing project. Allegedly, the public prosecutor's office said in its search applications, it was unclear in which room the accused person actually lived, and "no demarcated residential units" could be seen from the outside.

So, according to those affected, around 200 police officers arrived in the early morning hours of April 27, 2022, surrounded the building, broke the locks and searched countless rooms and harassed the residents for hours.

In onePress releaseThe residents ordered the raid as a clear attempt to “destroy open spaces (…)” and announced that “our alternative lifestyles, our radical criticism of the prevailing conditions and our resistance (we) will not be banned”. Also onindymediaA report about the search was found the day after the raid.

Around four months later, the raid was carried out again as part of a...demonstrationunder the motto “Defend left-wing freedoms! – Preserve rebellious structures!” picked up.

The Federal Constitutional Court takes action

While the Chemnitz regional court did not object to the raid over two years after the raid, it now decided on August 3, 2026Federal Constitutional Courtthat the search was unconstitutional.

According to the highest German court, the decisions of the local court as well as the regional court violate the complainant's fundamental right to inviolability of his home.

Particularly strict requirements must be imposed on a search of a non-suspect person. According to the court in Karlsruhe, “it is therefore not enough for non-suspects and the accused to live together in a shared apartment” (paragraph 16 of the decision). The Federal Constitutional Court further explains that “without knowledge of the internal and social conditions and the specific usage habits (…) no conclusions can be drawn from the external appearance of a shared apartment as to whether a non-suspect has been found” (loc. cit.).

In any case, a shared mailbox and living together in a shared apartment are not sufficient to justify a search on a non-suspect person (loc. cit., paragraph 18).

outlook

As pleasing as the decision from Karlsruhe seems at first glance, the procedure and the decision reveal considerable weaknesses. On the one hand, there is the passage of time; we are talking about a process duration of over four years, counting from the time of the raid. This took place on April 27, 2022. The Chemnitz Regional Court dismissed the complaint against the search on August 22, 2024. It was only around two years later, on August 3, 2026, that the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the search was unconstitutional.

Secondly, the decision only affects a “non-suspect” roommate in the housing project.

Thirdly, the level of suspicion that the Federal Constitutional Court assumes in order to legitimize a search even of non-suspect persons is relatively low; “indications as concrete clues” which “do not have to be particularly strong” are sufficient to justify a search (see para. 16).

Finally, it also applies here that shared rooms always offer an open flank.

Nevertheless, at least in theory, the Federal Constitutional Court makes this decision more difficult. Searches of “non-suspect” people living in a (left-wing) housing project. In the end, placing this more in the theoretical area is because in practice neither the police, the public prosecutor's office nor the courts, as this case shows, give little or no thought to the constitution. If, as happened here four and a half years later, some court in Karlsruhe objects to a search, it doesn't worry local police officers, judges or public prosecutors.

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