Martin Schubarth

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Martin Schubarth (born June 9, 1942 in Basel ; legal domicile there ) is a Swiss lawyer and former federal judge. From 1982 to 2004 he was judge at the Court of Cassation in criminal matters of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court and from 1999 to 2000 President of the Federal Supreme Court. In 2004 he resigned as a federal judge after apparently spat at a journalist and thus triggered a media and political vortex.

biography

Schubarth studied law in Basel and was, among other things, chess university master. In 1968 he was admitted to the Basel bar. From 1969 he worked as a lawyer in Basel, where he completed his habilitation at the university in 1973 . From 1976 to 1980 he was a professor at the University of Bonn , 1980 to 1983 at the University of Hanover .

Schubarth was politically active in the Basel Social Democratic Party (SP). According to him, it was “besides social, above all ecological and constitutional concerns” and - in the context of the debate on nuclear energy at the time - “reservations about unconditional belief in technology” that prompted him to join the SP. In 1976 he was elected to the Basel Grand Council .

At the suggestion of the SP, the United Federal Assembly elected Martin Schubarth as federal judge on 29 September 1982.

The "spitting affair"

According to media reports, on February 11, 2003, Schubarth spat at the federal court correspondent of the NZZ , Markus Felber , in the foyer of the Federal Court , but met a court clerk standing by and left without a word. On February 19, 2003, the federal court upheld the incident in a press release and disapproved of it in all forms. It also decided with immediate effect not to use Federal Judge Schubarth in the case law and asked him to resign. However, this did not comply with the request. He alleged that it was a coughing fit with sputum, but that the event was also linked to an intrigue against him prior to his re-election in December 2002.

Since Schubarth, as a magistrate, could neither be disciplined nor removed from his office by the Federal Court or the Federal Assembly, the Federal Assembly's business audit commissions (GPK) decided to initiate an inspection at the Federal Court. The GPK came to the conclusion that Schubarth was guilty of a gross violation of decency that was incompatible with the position of a federal judge. The trust of the law seekers in him was thus permanently disturbed. Therefore, there is no alternative to Schubarth's resignation.

Shortly before the GPK's report was passed, federal judge Schubarth submitted his resignation, initially on June 30th, then on the end of January 2004. His regular term of office would have ended in 2008. Peter Zihlmann uses this spit affair as a plot for his justice novel "The Judge and the Girl".

Fonts

  • Constitutional jurisdiction: comparative law, historical, political, sociological, legal policy; with the involvement of the European courts of law . Stämpfli Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7272-8786-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The text of this section is largely an abbreviated version of the parliamentary vote of the rapporteur of the Statutory Audit Commission, Franz Wicki, Council of States ( AB 2004 p 78 ). This text is in the public domain.
personal data
SURNAME Schubarth, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer and federal judge
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel