Hans Bächler

Hans Bächler

Hans Bächler (born September 27, 1924 in Murten ; † February 26, 2012 in Merlach ) was a Swiss politician ( FDP ) and State Councilor of the canton of Friborg .

Live and act

Baechler, who originally belongs to the Reformed Church, comes from Lenk in the Simmental. His parents were Hans Bächler, farmer, and Ottilie geb. Schaad. His father, the owner of the Ochsengut in Löwenberg near Murten , was a member of the municipal council for twenty years, twelve of them as a vice-overseer, and a member of the councilor for ten years. His mother was a housewife and gave her four children piano lessons on the instrument that was in the large farmhouse. He married Erna Lüthi in 1959. The couple had two children.

After primary and secondary school in Murten, Hans Bächler attended St. Michael's College , where he passed his Matura . He studied agricultural sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and obtained his agricultural engineering diploma in 1949. For six months he worked as a research assistant at the Liebefeld agricultural research institute . In 1951 he began a three-year degree in economics at the University of Freiburg and also taught at various agricultural schools (Grangeneuve, Uttewil, Zollikofen ).

In 1960 he took over his father's farm and ran it using the most progressive methods. In 1954, at the age of 30, he became General Councilor in Murten. In 1961 he was elected as a free-spirited member of the Grand Council and a member of the important national economic commission. He chaired the FDP section of the lake district and ran for the National Council in 1971 .

After three legislatures in parliament, Hans Bächler applied for a seat in the state council in the cantonal elections of 1976 . On December 5, he was elected in the second ballot with his party colleague Ferdinand Masset . He knew that as a German-speaking, Reformed and liberal man, he was a triple minority in the government.

In the State Council, Hans Bächler headed the Health and Social Directorate. He achieved two important deals: on June 12, 1977, the electorate accepted the expansion of the Marsens and Humilimont hospitals and, on March 2, 1980, the construction of the new cantonal institute for hygiene and bacteriology in Freiburg. During this first legislature, he submitted ten bills and six decrees to the Grand Council, including the one on the construction of the hospital for the lake district in Merlach. The laws mainly concerned nursing schools (1978), drinking water (1979) and government support for special care in old people's homes (1980).

In the 1981 general election, Hans Bächler was re-elected in the second ballot on December 6th. He now took over the management of the interior and agriculture, which suited him more. The people approved several bills, in particular those on relations between church and state (March 7, 1982), the status of cantonal judges (February 27, 1983) and those of the grand councils (June 9, 1985). On the other hand, citizens refused to reduce the age of majority to 18 years (February 26, 1984). From January 1, 1982 to December 31, 1986, he passed 15 laws and 35 decrees before Parliament, including the livestock insurance and agricultural lease laws, and amendments to the Hunting, Fishing and Forestry Acts at a time when it was brisk the deforestation has been discussed.

In 1986 Hans Bächler ran a third time for the Council of State and was re-elected on December 7th in the second ballot. His final term in office was marked by three important events. In 1989 he was President of the State Council. On September 23, 1990, the Freiburg voters approved the constitutional article on languages ​​with 83%. The famous Article 21, drawn up by the director of the institutions in the spirit of a consensus between German and French, not only designates French and German as official languages ​​with equal rights, the use of which is regulated “in compliance with the principle of territoriality”, but also stipulates that the state "To promote understanding between the two language communities". On March 3, 1991, Hans Bächler was able to record another success: Seven years after the rejection in 1984, the electorate approved the lowering of the age of majority to 18 years.

On December 31, 1991, Hans Bächler resigned from the State Council at the age of 67. He published his memoir in 2005 under the title Schiff im Hafen. Thoughts on the swirling ride . He died on February 26, 2012 in Merlach.

literature

• Georges Andrey , Hubertus von Gemmingen (translation): The Freiburg State Council: 1848–2011; History, organization, members . Ed .: John Clerc, Jean-Pierre Dorand, Nicholas Gex. Paulus, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7228-0815-4 .
• Marianne Rolle / AA: Bächler, Hans. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Web links

• Publications by and about Hans Bächler in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library