Pressure mounts on Swiss federal judges over romantic affair
The former president of the Federal Court has called on two judges to resign after concealing a romantic relationship.
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Pressure mounts on Swiss federal judges over romantic affair
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
In an interview with CH Media, Ulrich Meyer said the affair between Yves Donzallaz and Beatrice van de Graaf had allowed the Federal Court to “slide into an institutional crisis with their eyes wide open”.
This requires their immediate resignation or at least their decision not to seek re-election in September 2026, said Meyer. The law expressly prohibits “long-term cohabitation” between members of the Federal Court.
In Meyer’s opinion, the Administrative Commission, a body that oversees the Switzerland’s highest court under the presidency of François Chaix, cannot escape responsibility, regardless of whether it knew about the relationship.
Even an intimate relationship could affect judicial independence and therefore needed to be investigated further, said Meyer.
Meyer did not want to compare his own misdemeanours from his time in office with the hushed-up love affair. Meyer was criticised in 2020 for derogatory comments about a judge at the Federal Criminal Court. His internal comments about that judge were a mistake, he admitted in the interview.
With regard to a previous relationship with a female court clerk at the then Federal Insurance Court in Lucerne, Meyer emphasised that he had acted with complete transparency. He also informed the entire panel of judges when the relationship came to an end, Meyer said.
More
Affairs between Swiss federal judges deemed inappropriate
Adapted from German by AI/mga
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
External Content
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
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.