the Chief Justices have manipulated Parliament in planning the new Appellate Chamber. This is the conclusion reached by the business audit commissions. Federal criminal judge Blum can see herself confirmed.
A published report shows that there was misconduct surrounding the creation of the Federal Criminal Court’s Appellate Chamber.
“Decay of morals in Bellinzona”: The Federal Criminal Court made a name for itself with such headlines about three years ago. It was about allegations of sexism and bullying that questioned the correct functioning of the court. At the request of Parliament, the Federal Supreme Court – more precisely the three-person court headed by the then President Ulrich Meyer – carried out clarifications as to what exactly was going on in Bellinzona. It published an oversight report in spring 2020 that made things worse: the federal court leveled personal criticism at individual federal criminal judges and did not give those concerned an opportunity to comment.
One of them was Federal Criminal Judge Andrea Blum, about whom the President of the Federal Supreme Court also commented improperly in an audio recording. The damage to the reputation of the judiciary was considerable. The business control committees (GPK) of both councils were not at all satisfied with the federal court and clearly expressed their displeasure.
Conscious understatement
But the relationship problems are not over yet, as a GPK report published on Thursday shows. It deals with misconduct around the creation of the Appeals Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court. The Appeals Chamber has been active in Bellinzona since 2019, where decisions by the Criminal Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court are being appealed. Even before the authority began its work, it caused problems. It turned out that the human resources that had been assumed would by no means be sufficient to cope with the number of cases. Parliament had to rush more funds just before the start of the new instance. The GPK then wanted to know what had gone wrong with the planning.
The GPK report, which sheds light on the events, does not cast a good light on the conduct of the highest judges. He comes to the conclusion that the responsible persons in Bellinzona and Lausanne had deliberately assumed that the number of cases and the number of judges for the planned appeal chamber were too low in order to win the parliament over to the solution they wanted. Those concerned were of the opinion that the creation of an appeal body in the Federal Council and Parliament only had a chance of acceptance if it was a minimal variant. Otherwise, the task might have been assigned to the Federal Supreme Court, which was definitely not what it wanted.
The then Federal Court President Gilbert Kolly “with clear words” prevented all further project work, the auditors write. This requirement from Lausanne was passed on to all judges in Bellinzona, with the court president in Bellinzona expressly warning his people against passing on information.
“The deep-rooted forecasts were therefore systematic and corresponded to a political calculation; they were not just the result of incorrect assessments,” says the GPK report. And further: “The GPK are firmly of the opinion that the court administrations can also be expected to present the decision-making authorities with competent and realistic bases with truthful information and current figures without any political calculation.” The problems with the Appeals Chamber – in addition to the resources, there are also premises and institutional independence – are still unresolved.
To put it simply: According to the GPK report, the heads of the courts in Bellinzona and Lausanne have jointly deceived Parliament in order to realize their own ideas of an appeals chamber in Bellinzona. Critical voices that wanted to point out the problems to parliamentarians were not wanted.
“Misleading” statement
The Federal Criminal Judge Blum, mentioned at the beginning, also experienced this. She had pointed out the difficulties surrounding the planning of the new Appeals Chamber, first internally in Bellinzona and later before a parliamentary commission. She did not make herself popular with the two court presidencies.
In its 2020 supervisory report, the Federal Supreme Court gave the Federal Criminal Judge a proper scolding because she had brought unresolved problems within the court to Parliament. Ulrich Meyer and his two colleagues held that the direct approach of council or commission members through the transmission of information from the court by individual judges violated official secrecy – a view that the GPK described as incorrect. There can be no talk of breach of official secrecy.
Judge Blum, who felt that her professional honor had been violated, instituted criminal proceedings against the head of the federal court. The delicate matter ended up before the Federal Criminal Court, where Blum still works today. This rejected the judge’s request, which required a number of contortions: It was admitted that the statement made by the Federal Supreme Court on the breach of official secrecy was “unfortunately structured” and could be “misleading”, but it cannot be deduced from this that the federal judges Blum actually wanted to accuse of breach of official secrecy. The new GPK report now at least confirms that Andrea Blum actually had every reason to draw the attention of parliamentarians to the open problems surrounding the Appeals Chamber.