Markus Felber

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Markus Felber (born January 29, 1951 in Lucerne ; legal resident there ) is a Swiss lawyer and journalist . From 1994 to 2013 he was a correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung at the Federal Supreme Court .

Life

After the old-language Matura with Latin (so-called Type B) and an additional federal Matura in Hebrew, Felber studied theology for a few semesters . He then began his journalistic career in the foreign editorial office of the Lucerne fatherland . Working, he graduated from the University of Zurich to study law , graduating with a degree 1980th

In the following year, he began working full-time as a freelance journalist from the Federal Supreme Court, the Federal Insurance Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for various newspapers that had previously been served by Roberto Bernhard , who now wrote exclusively for the NZZ . At times the Swiss Dispatch Agency (SDA) and the Swiss Radio DRS were among his clients.

When Bernhard stepped down for reasons of age in 1994, Felber took over his position at NZZ, for which he had previously worked as Bernhard's deputy and as a reporter at the European Court of Justice and the Federal Insurance Court. Since then he has reported as the fourth NZZ federal court correspondent after Albert Wespi, Etienne Piaget and Roberto Bernhard under the abbreviation fel. from the palace on Mon Repos .

His reports were characterized by the fact that they were understandable for the average newspaper reader, but also informative for lawyers. In addition to the NZZ, they appeared in the Swisslex legal database and, until the end of 2007, in the Jusletter trade journal . The Zurich emeritus Heribert Rausch illustrated his script on public procedural law with numerous articles by Felber.

In addition, Markus Felber edited the current federal court case law for the Schweizerische Juristen-Zeitung (SJZ). At times he was the federal court correspondent for Die Zeitschrift für Sozialhilfe .

At the end of June 2013, Markus Felber took early retirement at the NZZ, according to his own statement, “unexpectedly”. From 2013 to 2018 he wrote a weekly column for the NZZ am Sonntag on the Federal Supreme Court and generally on case law and the judiciary in Switzerland. Since January 2018, he and Brigitte Hürlimann , Sina Bühler, Yvonne Kunz and Dominique Strebel have been part of the team of authors for the weekly column “At the court” of the online magazine Republik . Felber writes about the Federal Court in Lausanne and the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona.

At the end of 2015, Felber founded the company Santschi & Felber JustizKommunikation GmbH with the lawyer Mascha Santschi Kallay .

Felber lives in Mauensee .

Role as federal court correspondent

Felber's place of work, the Federal Court building in the Mon Repos city park in Lausanne

During Felber's time, the role of federal court correspondent changed significantly. Since it used to be up to a year and a half before the key decisions were published in the official collection , the NZZ was the only source for the respective judgments during this time, and the reporting had to be correspondingly extensive and detailed. Since 2000, however, most, and since 2007 all, written reasons for the judgment have been made available online on the Federal Court's website. Instead of the comprehensive transmission of the most important judgments, the focus today is on the concise presentation of as many important decisions as possible, the wording of which the reader can obtain himself immediately if necessary.

Above all, however, Felber saw himself as a “ watchdog ” of the highest Swiss court. More than the substantive jurisprudence, his criticism was directed towards the creation of this. In the 1990s he vehemently criticized the practice of two departments of the Federal Supreme Court, which continued until 1995, of making decisions on legal issues of fundamental importance in deviation from Art. 15 OG in three-person positions as illegal. With this criticism, Felber drew the anger of some federal judges. According to an article in the Basler Zeitung with the title “Whoever speaks right shouldn't break the law”, he was even threatened with the withdrawal of his accreditation .

Felber has repeatedly spoken out against suppressing the Swiss peculiarity of public judgment advice ( Art. 58  et seq. BGG).

The Federal Court of Felber was also criticized for the extent of the anonymization of judgments. For example, the name of the well-known moderator Gabriela Amgarten was changed to «Presenter A.» in the judgment on the risk fraud case . anonymized. Further examples are the coverage of the beverage name “Kombucha” from the manufacturer “Carpe Diem” or even the anonymization of the names of a cow and a bull.

More recently there are criticisms of the presidential composition of the bench (instead of an electronic case allocation system), which potentially violates the principle of the constitutional judge, as well as a reference to the problem of single judge proceedings, which is actually limited to obviously inadmissible complaints ( Art. 108 BGG) , to mention.

In 2003 federal judge Martin Schubarth's aversion to Felber escalated in the so-called "spitting affair", as a result of which the federal judge was forced to resign.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NZZ , June 30, 1994.
  2. ↑ Markus Felber: Herold and Watchdog. (PDF; 69 kB) In: Schweizerische Juristen-Zeitung . September 15, 2009, p. 529 ff.
  3. ↑ Heribert Rausch: Public procedural law on the basis of the judicial reform. 2nd edition, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-7255-5290-8 .
  4. ↑ Markus Felber's website .
  5. ↑ NZZ. Markus Felber is leaving after 19 years. In: persoenlich.com . 4th June 2013.
  6. ↑ Markus Felber is a new columnist at “NZZ am Sonntag”. NZZ media group , July 17, 2013.
  7. ^ Raphael Waldvogel: “Republic” launches justice column. In: Klein Report . January 18, 2018.
  8. ↑ Christof Moser: Why justice is becoming a focus of the republic. In: Republic . 17th January 2018.
  9. ^ Claudia Blumer: friend of the public. In: Tages-Anzeiger . November 10, 2018.
  10. ^ Website of the Federal Supreme Court , see in particular the list of the newly included decisions .
  11. ^ The I. Public Law and the II. Civil Law Department.
  12. ↑ Federal Act of 16 December 1943 on the Organization of Federal Justice (Bundesrechtspflegegesetz [OG]), replaced since 2007 by the Federal Act of 17 June 2005 on the Federal Supreme Court ( Federal Supreme Court Act [BGG]) ( SR 173.110 ).
  13. ↑ See for example From the Federal Supreme Court, Absurd and Impossible, Difficulties in Dealing with the Rules of Procedure. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . August 29, 1994.
  14. ↑ Servant in the service of the public. Text of a lecture given on March 7, 2002 in Wattwil on the occasion of a further training event of the St. Gallen Cantonal Court on the subject of “Courts and the media”, p. 5 (PDF; 23 kB).
  15. ^ Threatened federal court advisory culture. Valuable Swiss legal tradition a victim of the workload? In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Aug 11, 1994, p. 11; Court counseling culture on the deathbed. Valuable Swiss legal tradition seriously threatened. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. March 22, 2002, p. 13.
  16. ↑ Judgment of the Court of Cassation of October 24, 2000, 6S.62 / 2000  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( BGE 126 IV 165 ); on this Felber in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. December 16, 2000, p. 48.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / jumpcgi.bger.ch   
  17. ↑ Judgment of the Federal Court of May 8, 2001, 2A.565 / 2000  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / jumpcgi.bger.ch  
  18. ^ Judgment of the Federal Court of February 11th. 2002, 5P.451 / 2001  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; on this Felber in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. April 5, 2002, p. 17.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / jumpcgi.bger.ch  
  19. ↑ Markus Felber: The right to the right judge. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. August 5, 2010, p. 9.
  20. ↑ Markus Felber: Single judge on the wrong track. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. June 1, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Felber, Markus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer and journalist, federal court correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne