- Federal President Viola Amherd’s Defense Department DDPS campaigned emphatically and successfully for a defusing of the Hamas ban.
- This emerges from previously unpublished documents that the “NZZ am Sonntag” was able to view based on the public information law.
- A legal expert classifies what the new law means.
The first version of the ban stipulated that not only Hamas, but also “organizations and groups that agree with Hamas in terms of leadership, objectives and means” were to be banned. This original draft was drawn up by Fedpol.
The VBS defended itself against this in the official consultation: The law leads to ambiguities, which would also ban other organizations. In addition, the automatic ban of further organizations could lead to diplomatic difficulties.
Legend:
Hamas should be banned – Parliament and the Federal Council quickly agreed on this after the attack on October 7th. Now it is clear that the DDPS was committed to weakening the ban.
Shutterstock/Anas Mohammed
The Federal Council agreed: In the current draft law, only Hamas and its successor organizations are banned. That is a weakening – and still: According to the draft law, the Federal Council can ban further organizations on its own – without consulting Parliament.
Legal expert: Federal Council has more discretion
This discretion is a novelty in Switzerland, says Armin Stähli from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich. His dissertation dealt with the ban on terrorist organizations.
“This is regulated differently in the Intelligence Services Act. This means that the Security Policy Commission must be consulted first.” Stähli considers this to make sense from the perspective of separation of powers and democracy, as he told SRF.
The Federal Council should be given a lot of discretion when it comes to the question of whether further organizations should be banned. Parliament can still decide whether the law will actually be designed this way.
Ban on Hamas as a turning point
For Switzerland, the Hamas ban represents a paradigm shift anyway. Armin Stähli says that most recently in the 1990s there was a wave of political initiatives calling for a ban on organizations such as the Tamil Tigers or the PKK.
“The Federal Council has always said that such bans contradict Swiss tradition. They are unsuitable and disproportionate,” says Stähli. According to the legal expert, this has now changed with the developments regarding Hamas.
In addition, Switzerland has recently clearly defined in the Intelligence Services Act when an organization is banned. Accordingly, only organizations that are on the UN sanctions list are banned. Switzerland now wants to make an exception for Hamas.