Former Swiss Green Party judge: ‘ECHR judgement not tenable’
Former Green Party federal judge Brigitte Pfiffner has described the climate judgement of the European Court of Human Rights as "legally untenable". The court is making policy instead of interpreting the Convention on Human Rights, said Pfiffner.
This content was published on
3 minutes
Keystone-SDA
In the case of the climate seniors, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) barely addressed the central questions in the grounds for the judgement, said Pfiffner in an interview with the SonntagsZeitung newspaper published on Sunday. The Zurich native was a judge at the Federal Supreme Court for around ten years.
One of the questions is why an association is entitled to lodge a complaint and which human right has been violated by the Climate Seniors Association. “This is dealt with in just eleven lines in the 138-page judgement,” she said. The reasoning was “because the matter is important”, the former federal judge said.
There was also no convincing answer to the question of the extent to which the association’s “right to respect for private and family life” was restricted due to Swiss climate policy. “For logical reasons, there can’t be any: The right to respect for private and family life can only accrue to a natural person,” said Pfiffner.
Declining reputation
“With such politically coloured judgements, the court undermines its credibility,” she said. In many countries, the Court’s reputation is already in decline. In Germany, Austria and England, there are discussions as to whether ECHR judgements should still be considered binding or merely recommendations.
At the beginning of April, the Court accepted a complaint from the Climate Seniors Association and found a violation of the Convention on Human Rights. According to the court, Switzerland had failed to fulfil its duties with regard to climate protection. Swiss politicians reacted very differently to the decision. The red-green party and environmental organisations welcomed the judgement. The conservative side said it was dangerous for the courts to play politics.
Adapted from German by DeepL/amva
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Popular Stories
More
Foreign affairs
European nations snub Swiss-made weapons over Ukraine restrictions
Switzerland will deliver rubble removal equipment to Ukraine
This content was published on
Thirty rubble removal machines and thirty fire-fighting pumps: this is the equipment that Switzerland will be delivering to the Ukraine in the next few days. The total value of these goods is 5.6 million Swiss francs.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Landmark ruling: Switzerland’s climate policy violates human rights
This content was published on
The European Court of Human Rights says the Swiss authorities are responsible for not implementing efficient climate change policies and for violating the right to life of a group of elderly women.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.