A button that reads "Arguments instead of bans"' seen after the conclusion of the session of the Federal Constitutional Court | Simon Hofmann/Getty Images Top German court rules against ban of far-right NPD The neo-Nazi group’s politics are ‘incompatible with democracy’ but it poses no real threat, says Germany’s top court.

The German Federal Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled on Tuesday against a proposed ban of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD).

In its second rejection of an attempted ban of the neo-Nazi organization — in 2003 it turned down a similar request — the court ruled the NPD does indeed “intend to replace the existing constitutional system with an authoritarian state that adheres to the idea of an ethnically defined “people’s community," and its basic political concept was “incompatible with the principle of democracy.”

However, the court said the NPD's chances of succeeding in this "endeavor" were very low.

"The ban failed not because the NPD isn't pursuing anti-constitutional goals but because it is too weak and inconsequential to make its goals a reality," Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said in a statement Tuesday.

"This is a strong sign that we have addressed the issue of the NPD successfully," he said, adding that authorities will carry on monitoring the party's activities and he would continue to ban organizations of the extreme right.

The NPD has lost ground in recent local elections, partly because of the rise of the Alternative for Germany, a right-wing party launched in early 2013 that is more in line with Austria's FPÖ and the National Front in France. The NPD no longer has seats in any state assembly — a far cry from its peak around 1969, when it got 4.3 percent of the national vote and narrowly missed getting into the Bundestag, the lower house of the federal parliament in Berlin.

In September the NPD gathered only 24,365 votes in elections in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, pushing it below the 5 percent threshold for seats in the local parliament.