Court blow for German satirist in legal spat over Erdogan poem

One of Germany's best known satirists, Jan Böhmermann, has failed in an attempt to have the country's Constitutional Court rule on his legal spat with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reported dpa.

A poem recited on public television by Böhmermann in 2016 linked Erdogan, among other things, to sex with animals and led to a diplomatic spat between Germany and Turkey. Erdogan took the case to the German courts under a now removed law regarding insults to heads of state.

The case became a battle over constitutionally protected freedom of expression on the one hand and personal rights on the other, as well as the boundaries of satire.

The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled in its judgement published on Thursday that "the constitutional complaint is not accepted for decision because it has no prospect of success."

Following previous rulings by lower courts, large parts of the poem were banned from being recited.

A court in Hamburg ruled that the passages in question contained serious disparagement of Erdogan for which there was no actual evidence. Only parts of the poem were banned from being repeated, although the Turkish president's lawyers had argued for it to be banned in its entirety.

An appeal was not allowed in these cases, and this decision was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice in 2019.

Böhmermann then went to the country's highest Constitutional Court in an attempt to pursue his case.

The court on Thursday did not give a detailed explanation of why the constitutional complaint was unsuccessful.

The decision is not subject to appeal, meaning that the case law of the Hamburg judges remains legally binding.