Extremist resolution (Switzerland)

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With the extremist resolution of 1950, the Federal Council in Switzerland initiated extensive action against federal employees who used their position in the service “against the interests of the state”. In addition to numerous dismissals, non-re-elections in office or transfers from employment, the “extremist decision” resulted in decades of surveillance of politically suspicious federal employees.

The “extremist decision” can only be understood in connection with the Civil Service Act of 1927, which placed federal civil servants in a special legal relationship. This legal relationship also included the civil servants' duty of loyalty to the state. This duty of loyalty served as the basis for the “extremist decision”.

prehistory

With the growing presence of communist organizations in Swiss politics and in connection with the national strike of 1918, the Federal Council clarified with the Federal Justice and Police Department for the first time in 1919 "whether not all those persons who carry out communist propaganda should be removed from the federal administration". But there was no general ban on communists in the administration. However, due to their political activity, individual officials were confronted with proceedings relating to “breach of duty”.

The introduction of the Civil Servants Act in 1927 defined clubs that were campaigning for strikes as "dangerous to the state". As a result, the Federal Council issued several bans on membership in such “state-dangerous” associations, such as the membership ban for the Federal Staff Union of Basel and the surrounding area on February 16, 1931 , as this is to be equated with the Communist Party according to the Federal Council. On December 2, 1932, the decision to exclude the communists from the federal administration resulted in the incompatibility of federal service and membership in the Communist Party. This decision was based on Articles 13 and 23 of the Civil Service Act, from which the Federal Council derived a ban on membership in any “communist organization”. This open definition meant that subscribing to a communist newspaper was sufficient reason for incompatibility with federal service. It was not until November 1940 that the Federal Council passed resolutions on the dissolution of National Socialist movements in Switzerland.

content

The instructions of the Federal Council on the termination of the employment relationship of untrustworthy civil servants, employees and workers of the federal government of 5 September 1950 comprised the following points:

  1. Officials, employees and workers of the federal government, who after their political activity can no longer be shown the trust required for their position, are to be dismissed. This trust is lacking when there is no longer any certainty that a conscript will unconditionally remain loyal to the state, do everything that promotes the interests of the federal government, and refrain from doing everything that affects them.
  2. For civil servants, dismissal from the federal service is to be effected by non-re-election, for other federal employees by termination of the employment relationship at the earliest possible date.
  3. Federal civil servants whose reliability is in doubt without sufficient reasons for dismissal in accordance with Section 1 can continue to be employed as employees or workers in a terminable employment relationship.
  4. Federal employees who meet the same requirements may not be promoted or elected or transferred to posts that require increased trust. Holders of such trust posts may need to be transferred to more suitable positions.

The directive had direct consequences for federal staff, but was not included in the relevant legislation. The Civil Servants Act was not amended and the instructions were not mentioned in the PTT and SBB service regulations . Unlike earlier resolutions of the Bundesrat, this directive no longer contained an objective criterion for dismissal such as membership in a communist organization. The subjective criterion of trustworthiness gave the superiors a lot of leeway in implementing the instruction. This turnaround in dealing with the “communist danger” is to be seen in the context of the Cold War and the persecution of “subversive elements” in the state apparatus that began with the McCarthy era .

Importance and immediate application

The majority of the press took up the Federal Council's instructions very benevolently and pointed out that the action against the “fifth column” in the federal staff was overdue. The Catholic newspaper Neue Zürcher Nachrichten , however, feared that the administrative departments would not always have the courage to implement the Federal Council's instructions in all their implications. The federal government , on the other hand, asked itself "whether the PdA as such should not be banned and its members expelled from the National Council." The offense reported in detail from the press conference on the instructions of the Federal Council:

“It is not a question of the civil servant having to share the political opinions of the majority parties and refraining from criticizing the state, but the point is that those who are completely alienated from the democratic form of government as civil servants can no longer enjoy their trust which must be brought to him as a civil servant as well as to fellow citizens . With the instructions issued to the federal administration, the Federal Council does not want to exclude all extremists from federal service. This would also affect conscripts who, despite belonging to an extremist party, be it the PdA, are trustworthy , and this would contradict the fact that the PdA is not prohibited and that it is represented in parliament as a criterion for the decision Therefore, membership of the PdA as such should not be used for re-election, but rather the trust that can be placed in an extremist . The instructions are not based on Art. 13 of the Civil Servants Act, according to which civil servants are prohibited from belonging to an illegal or state-dangerous association, but on Art. 22, according to which the individual civil servant fulfills his official duties faithfully and conscientiously and thereby has to do everything that promotes the interests of the federal government and to refrain from everything that affects them. [...] The extremist activists are to be hit, although there can be no doubt that at the moment they are the activists of the PdA. What an activist is must be decided on the basis of the individual case. "

The federal administration announced the number of suspects in the federal staff in September 1950. Proceedings were initiated against around 450 people - half a percent of all federal employees. Of these 450 people, 300 were SBB employees and 150 PTT employees. At the end of these proceedings, measures were taken against 34 people, ten of whom (six PTT, three military and one SBB) were dismissed or not re-elected. 24 federal civil servants were transferred to employment. The case of a postal worker in Zurich in 1951 serves as an example of non-re-election. The postal worker was a member of the PdA and thus the successor organization of the Communist Party. However, this fact was not sufficient for non-re-election. The PTT justified the non-re-election of the post office assistant with the alleged lack of certainty that the officer would not affect the interests of the federal government. According to the PTT, this uncertainty lay in a company group disguised as a music, singing and sports club, in which the post office helper had infiltrated his work colleagues with communist propaganda and thus prepared actions that were “dangerous to the state”. The “clean-up measures” in the federal staff were only directed against suspects of left-wing extremism.

Only the official organ of the PdA, the newspaper Vorwärts , and individual sections of the PTT Union resisted the instructions of the Federal Council . The PTT trade unionists feared that the new decision would lead to arbitrariness and denunciation. In addition, the employees regarded as “untrustworthy” have no defense against a change in their employment relationship. The PTT-Union saw in this procedure a radical blow against the trade union movement and against the freedom of association. Vorwärts saw in the personal files that were created about the federal employees, the machinations of a police state from which no one in Switzerland is protected. The original assurances of the Federal Council that the decision did not punish the convictions, but the actual behavior was decisive for transfers or dismissals, described Vorwärts as a lie. None of the persons affected by the sanctions could have been proven violations of duty of duty: "It is only the convictions, the social and socialist attitude that is declared a crime".

Development and cancellation

With the powers of the “extremist decision”, the police and the Federal Prosecutor's Office pursued comprehensive surveillance of “untrustworthy” federal employees, even after the measures taken when the directive was introduced. Expressions of sympathy for communist activities, participation in relevant events or demonstrations and interest in subscribing to a communist newspaper often resulted in an application to the federal prosecutor's office for post and telephone control by the respective cantonal police. Most of the time, the federal prosecutor's office allowed these invasions of privacy. Often, however, the monitoring of the suspects' correspondence did not lead to relevant results and had no noticeable consequences for those affected.

However, there were isolated dismissals of federal employees due to their untrustworthiness for decades. In particular, the PTT excelled with the dismissal of telegraph operators and telephone operators who no longer appeared trustworthy as members of left-wing extremist associations and who ran the risk of abuse of their official position and breach of confidentiality.

The “extremists' decision” remained in force until March 12, 1990, despite the minor threat posed by the extreme left in Switzerland. It was only when the Fichen affair revealed that countless citizens were being monitored on grounds of political suspicion that the Federal Council overturned the decision.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Act on the Employment Relationship of Federal Civil Servants of June 30, 1927, Article 13, Association Law: Paragraph 1: "Civil servants are guaranteed the right to organize within the limits of the Federal Constitution." Paragraph 2: "After all, the civil servant is prohibited from belonging to an association that provides for or uses the strike of civil servants or which is otherwise unlawful or dangerous to the state in its purposes or in the means intended for it. The Federal Council is exclusively responsible for the application of this provision. " https://www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/viewOrigDoc.do?id=10030087 (accessed: May 20, 2019).
  2. ↑ Federal Law on the Employment Relationship of Federal Civil Servants of June 30, 1927, Article 23, Prohibition of Strikes: Paragraph 1: "The civil servant may neither go on strike himself nor cause other civil servants to do so." Paragraph 2: "Associations and cooperatives may neither exclude an official from being a member for not taking part in a strike nor inflict economic disadvantage on him." https://www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/viewOrigDoc.do?id=10030087 (accessed: May 20, 2019).
  3. ↑ Knoepfel, Peter / Fisch, Christoph, Switzerland, in: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde et al. (Ed.), Extremists and Public Service. Legal situation and practice of access to and dismissal from the public service in Western Europe, USA, Yugoslavia and the EC, Baden-Baden 1981, pp. 509–559, here pp. 531 f.
  4. ↑ Swiss Federal Archives (SFA), instructions of the Federal Council on the termination of the employment relationship of untrustworthy civil servants, employees and workers of the federal government (dated September 5, 1950). https://www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/viewOrigDoc.do?id=10037150 (accessed: May 20, 2019).
  5. ↑ Germann, Raimund E., Organizational, personal, political aspects, in: Pius Bischofberger, Raimund E. Germann, Roland Ruffieux (ed.), Verwaltung im Umbruch, pp. 35–98, here p. 81.
  6. ^ Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, The cleansing at the PTT has begun, September 16, 1950, o. P.
  7. ↑ Der Bund, o. T., September 27, 1950, o. P.
  8. ^ The act, the "cleansing" in the federal administration, October 8, 1950, p. 3.
  9. ↑ Germann, Raimund E., Organizational, personal, political aspects, in: Pius Bischofberger, Raimund E. Germann, Roland Ruffieux (ed.), Verwaltung im Umbruch, pp. 35–98, here p. 81.
  10. ↑ Knoepfel, Peter / Fisch, Christoph, Switzerland, in: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde et al. (Ed.), Extremists and Public Service. Legal situation and practice of access to and dismissal from the public service in Western Europe, USA, Yugoslavia and the EC, Baden-Baden 1981, pp. 509–559, here p. 534.
  11. ↑ The act, the "cleansing" in the federal administration, October 8, 1950. "During the war years the right-wing extremists were dealt with. [...] Since the end of the hostilities, the right-wing extremists have played no role anymore. The same cannot be said, however by the Communists, the members of the Labor Party. The Federal Prosecutor underlined that the Soviet allegiance of the PdA and its orientation towards the Cominform must be considered proven. This prompted the Federal Council to examine whether the position of an office [.. .] with membership of the Labor Party. "
  12. ^ National-Zeitung (morning edition) Basel, Resolutions of the PTT officials, October 10, 1950, o. P.
  13. ↑ Vorwärts, Zürcher Pöstler against the wave of inflation and Federal Council terror, October 16, 1950, o. P.
  14. ↑ Forward, These are the methods of the police state. No citizen knows what "crime" he is charged with in his police dossier, September 23, 1950, no p.
  15. ^ Swiss Federal Archives (BAR), dossier on the PTT employee Carmen Spörri, 1966, E4320 # 1995/392 # 1405 *. On September 30, 1966, the Zurich canton police recorded in a report that the Spörris had hardly received any mail, and they also listed in detail some of the "more subversive" intercepted telephone calls; Ulrich Spörri asked for a Japanese headphone model for his amateur radio system at the Bühler company in Zurich, while Carmen Spörri made an appointment to visit an art exhibition by a Czech artist in Zurich. "As we mentioned at the beginning, there were no concrete indications that Carmen or Ulrich Spörri were active in the intelligence service. Nevertheless, the Spörri-Dupertuis dit Briaux left a somewhat ambivalent impression. We therefore become Carmen Spörri - whose statements are yes to the PK [Post control] and TK [telephone control] carried out - still by mutual agreement in the protocol. This did not happen because of the pregnancy and the recent birth of Ms. Spörri. " Swiss Federal Archives (SFA), dossier on cases of monitored PTT employees, E4320C # 1995/392 # 28 *.
  16. ↑ Hänni, Peter, Rights and Duties in Public Service Law. A collection of cases on court and administrative practice in the Confederation and the cantons, Freiburg i.Ü. 1993, p. 120 f. On p. 121: "Dismissal of a telephone operator because her brother was an active member of a left-wing extremist movement. The Federal Supreme Court confirmed the legality of the dismissal of a telephone operator The Federal Supreme Court ruled that her brother was an active member of the left-wing extremist movement 'Jeunesse progressiste'. [...] There is a risk of a serious breach of secret. Therefore, the conclusion is defensible The operator is no longer trustworthy because of her personal family connection to a leading member of the 'Jeunesse progressiste'. "
  17. ↑ Germann, Raimund E., The State Apparatus and the Government (Public Administration in Switzerland 1), Bern 1998, p. 124.