The Constitutional Court of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate has rejected a complaint by the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU for violation of the neutrality requirement (case reference: VGH O 20/25 of 15 August 2025). The reason for this was that the SPD Minister President Alexander Schweitzer had organised a press event with „information on the new federal government“, to which he invited the two new federal ministers of the SPD from Rhineland-Palatinate, but not the new Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder from the CDU, who comes from Rhineland-Palatinate. The party saw this as a violation of the principle of democracy and the neutrality requirement and took legal action - but without success.

The Constitutional Court ruled that party affiliation was not the main focus of the meeting, nor did the social media posts published after the press conference work in favour of or against a party. On the other hand, the Rhineland-Palatinate public had an interest in knowing which politicians from their federal state would join the federal government. The decisive factor was not party affiliation, but the nomination for a particular office announced that morning. It was not a matter of „influencing the chances in the political competition in favour of or to the detriment of a political party“, according to the court's press release.

„Whether a public official such as a prime minister is in breach of the political neutrality requirement is largely determined by the context and content of events such as press events. If there is no recognisable party-politically motivated objective, there is no violation,“ says Rechtsanwalt Tobias Schröter.