This year’s Christopher Street Day in Dresden could proceed with the street festival as usual: The Saxon Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Bautzen classified the multi-day street festival as a gathering as well, the court announced on Tuesday (5 B 142/26).
It responded to a complaint filed by Christopher Street Day Dresden e.V., which had previously been defeated in the Dresden Administrative Court in an expedited procedure (TheColu.mn reported). Ahead of the decision, debates had centered on how to classify the street festival, which Dresden will celebrate from Thursday through Sunday this week.
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Instagram / csddresden | The CSD celebrated its victory in the second instance early Tuesday evening |
The Saxon State Directorate had, at the end of March, decided that the CSD could not be entirely classified as a gathering; only the parade qualified as a gathering, while the street festival was deemed a commercial event. In that scenario, the CSD would have to cover security and cleaning costs, among other things.
Dispute Not Yet Settled
The Higher Administrative Court stressed in its ruling granting temporary legal protection that the CSD, after the lower court’s decision, updated its event concept and added new elements to it. The Pride had also been conducted as a gathering in previous years.
The Fifth Senate’s decision is final—meaning the Pride can proceed this year as usual. On the substance, however, no full merits ruling has yet been issued. The case centered on an urgent balance of interests: the court indicated that the risk, raised by the CSD, that most of the registered gathering would not occur or would not proceed as planned, weighed more heavily than the alleged impairment of the effective enforcement of the special-use regulation and possible imitation effects asserted by the respondent.
The previous ruling had argued, in line with political considerations, that the street festival would be “driven by commercial and especially gastronomic offerings” and thus not an unpermitted assembly under the Saxon Assembly Act and the Basic Law. “With the CSD, this is not about hot dogs and entertainment—it is about political expression in public space,” the association argued.
