Eugène Borel

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Eugène Borel

Eugène Borel (born June 17, 1835 in Neuchâtel , † June 14, 1892 in Bern , resident in Couvet and Neuchâtel) was a Swiss politician and lawyer . In addition to his work as a public prosecutor , he was politically active at the municipal and cantonal level. For eight years he was a member of the government of the Canton of Neuchâtel and the Council of States . In 1872 he was elected to the Federal Council as a representative of the radical parliamentary group (today's FDP ) and was a member of it until 1875. Borel was a co-founder of the Universal Postal Union in 1874 and its director until his death.

biography

Studies and canton politics

He was born the son of the orphanage director François-Victor Borel and Louise Fauche. His grandfather Louis Fauche-Borel was a well-known printer who had published the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Borel attended the humanistic grammar school in Neuchâtel, his youth was marked by the events of the revolution of 1848. He then studied law at the Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich . He joined the Helvetia student association and was an honorary member of the Swiss Zofinger Association .

After an internship at Jules Philippin's law firm , Borel was appointed prosecutor at the age of 21 . One of his first tasks was to interrogate the leading royalist counter-revolutionaries in the Neuchâtel trade . From 1857 Borel belonged to the legislature of the city of Neuchâtel, from 1864 to the city ​​council . After serving as secretary of the constituent assembly in 1857/58, he was elected to the cantonal parliament , the Grand Conseil , in 1862 . In 1865 he was elected to the cantonal government , the Conseil d'État . As a State Councilor, Borel was initially responsible for the Neuchâtel military, and from 1870 for the judiciary. He took rigorous action against abuse of office in the instructor corps and had three new, fundamental laws drawn up: the notarial law, the law on court organization and the code of civil procedure.

Federal politics

Borel gained his first experience at the national level in 1860 as a federal auditor and translator in the National Council . In 1865 the Grand Conseil elected him one of the two representatives of Neuchâtel in the Council of States . In 1869 he was President of the Council of States . The following year, it appointed the Federal Court for Coroner for Western Switzerland, in March 1871 he was after the Tonhalle riot in Zurich working as a federal prosecutor. In the dispute over the Federal Constitution , Borel was the spokesman for a total revision without clearly positioning himself as a centralist or federalist. Most important to him was the unification of the law.

After the new constitution was narrowly rejected by the people and the cantons with 50.5% no votes in May 1872 , the proponents of the revision achieved a clear victory in the subsequent National Council elections. One of the incumbent Federal Councilors , Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel from Geneva , had, as a declared opponent of revision, put himself in an almost hopeless situation. The increasing number of supporters put Borel as a demolition candidate for the Federal Council election on December 7, 1872. In the second ballot, he received 90 of 168 votes cast, Challet-Venel only 73. On January 1, 1873, Borel took over the post and telegraph department from his predecessor, who had been voted out of office .

Federal Council

As a Federal Councilor, Borel devoted himself intensively to the establishment of an international postal union. At the suggestion of the Director General of the Deutsche Reichspost , the first international postal conference took place from September 15 to October 9, 1874 in Bern . This conference, chaired by Borel, was attended by representatives from 22 countries that founded the General Postal Union . The entire Federal Council then unanimously appointed Borel as the first director of the new organization. In addition, he continued to campaign for the total revision of the Federal Constitution, which was formulated less centralistically in the second attempt and was adopted by the people and the cantons on April 14, 1874 . On June 3, 1875, Borel announced his resignation from the Federal Council. Two weeks later the Federal Assembly accepted his resignation, but asked him unanimously to remain in office until the end of the year.

further activities

From January 1876, Borel devoted himself to his work as director of the Postal Union, which was renamed the Universal Postal Union in 1878 and doubled its membership under his leadership. Several times he organized the Universal Postal Congresses : in 1878 and 1880 in Paris , 1885 in Lisbon and in 1891 in Vienna . He also worked part-time as a military judge: he was the major judge of the Third Army Division, President of the Court of Cassation and chief auditor. In 1889 the Federal Council sent him as a commissioner to the canton of Ticino as part of a federal intervention , where, since the last elections, conditions between the conservative government and the free-spirited municipal authorities have been similar to civil war. With the support of Zurich's troops, he was able to restore peace and order for a short time. He died three years later of a heart condition.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jelmini: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 142.
  2. ^ Eugène Borel in the digital Alfred Escher letter edition . Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Jelmini: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 143.
  4. ^ Jelmini: The Federal Council Lexicon. Pp. 143-144.
  5. ^ Jelmini: The Federal Council Lexicon. Pp. 144-145.
predecessor Office successor
- Director of the International Office of the Universal Postal Union
1874-1892 		Edmund Höhn
Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel Member of the Swiss Federal Council
1873–1875 		Bernhard Hammer
personal data
SURNAME Borel, Eugène
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuchâtel
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1892
Place of death Bern