Zaccaria Giacometti

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Zaccaria Giacometti (born September 26, 1893 in Stampa ; † August 10, 1970 in Zurich ) was a Swiss legal scholar and liberal-democratic state thinker .

Life

Childhood in the artist family Giacometti

Zaccaria Giacometti was born in 1893 as the second son of the teacher Zaccaria Giacometti (1856-1897) and Cornelia Stampa (1868-1905) in Stampa in Bergell . At the age of twelve he was an orphan. The four years older brother Cornelio and Zaccaria found care and accommodation with Rodolfo Baldini, brother of the maternal grandmother, after the death of their mother.

Zaccaria was related to all Giacometti artists through the maternal and paternal line: Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933) was a second cousin and Giovanni's wife Annetta was Zaccaria's aunt. Annetta's sons Alberto (1901–1966), Diego (1902–1985) and the architect Bruno (1907–2012) were cousins ​​of Zaccaria. He grew up with them as an "older brother" so to speak. As a result, there is probably no constitutional law professor whom famous artists have portrayed so often. Giovanni had made various oil paintings and an ink drawing of Zaccaria, the young Alberto had portrayed his older cousin for practice purposes. The deceased parents and a grandmother left the two boys a considerable fortune, which enabled them to get an education. Zaccaria Giacometti left Bergell at the age of 14. In 1907 he entered the boarding school of the Evangelical College in Schiers and attended the local grammar school, which he left at Easter 1914 with the Matura. Zaccaria was interested in theology and philosophy and initially intended to study philosophy.

Education

On April 28, 1914, Giacometti enrolled in the Phil. I faculty of the University of Basel , but enrolled in the law faculty in the winter semester of 1915/1916. On July 13, 1916, he moved from Basel to the University of Zurich , where he completed his studies in 1919 with a Dr. iur. from. In Zurich he became a student of the famous constitutional law teacher Fritz Fleiner (1867–1937), with whom he did his dissertation on the separation of church and state. The post-doctoral thesis from 1924 dealt with the question of the extension of public law over civil law in the case law of the Federal Supreme Court.

In 1923 he married Gertrud Mezger (1897–1973), the daughter of the SBB district director of Zurich; the marriage remained childless. His wife also studied law; they had met in Fritz Fleiner's house.

Professor in Zurich

In 1920 Giacometti worked as a provisional federal official in the Justice Department of the FDJP and from 1920–1922 he worked as a private assistant to Fritz Fleiner for the completion of his work on federal state law. From 1922 to 1927 he worked for Zurich General Accident and Liability Insurance as a director's secretary at the headquarters. In 1927 the Zurich government councilor appointed Giacometti associate professor for public law and canon law. 1934–1936 he was dean of the law and political science faculty; In 1936 he succeeded Fleiner as full professor and in 1954/55 he was the rector of the university.

In 1960 Giacometti fell ill and resigned from his professorship in 1961. In 1962, for example, he was no longer able to accept an honorary doctorate from the St. Gallen Commercial College himself. He died on August 10, 1970 after a long suffering in Zurich. His grave is in Bergell in the cemetery of the Church of San Giorgio in Borgonovo.

The heirs of Zaccaria Giacometti donated his scientific library to the library of the law and political science faculty of the University of Zurich.

Create

In his work as a professor Giacometti advocated the rule of law and democracy. His state-philosophical conceptions were based primarily on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and to a limited extent on the neo-Kantianism of Hans Kelsen . He maintained an uncompromising and consistent liberal stance. This is particularly evident in Giacometti's fight against Swiss emergency ordinance law in the interwar period and during the Second World War, as well as in his view of the rights of freedom.

Controversy over emergency law and the authoritarian state

For Giacometti, the prohibition of arbitrariness was "the most important constitutional principle that could be considered a positive legal maxim for unlawful administrative acts". Giacometti strongly criticized the authoritarian character of legislation in the interwar period. At that time, the Federal Assembly often resorted to the urgency clause to eliminate the legal referendum. During the Second World War , the Federal Assembly granted the Federal Council extra-constitutional powers. Zaccaria Giacometti commented on this as follows: the federal government appears “as an authoritarian state with totalitarian tendencies” and the rights of freedom are eliminated. In 1950, the Federal Assembly took up the pressure through a "return to direct democracy" people's initiative , the proxy regime on at the end of the 1,952th

Fundamental rights theory

Giacometti saw the basic rights of the federal constitution as an expression of a general, unwritten guarantee of freedom. He published this thesis at a young age and took it up again and again in the course of his career, for example in his Rector's speech at the University of Zurich in 1955: «From the liberal value system and the meaning of the catalog of freedoms in the Federal Constitution it can be concluded that that the federal constitution guarantees every individual freedom that becomes practical, that is to say is endangered by state authority, and not only the freedom rights expressly listed in the constitution. " This is another example of Giacometti's consistent liberalism. His thinking is based on the presupposed freedom of the human being, without which no rational state can be thought. Freedom is not a postulate of natural law or content, but, as with Kant, a prerequisite for a state to be conceived in the first place.

See also

Works (selection)

  • The genesis of Cavour's formula Libera chiesa in libero stato. Zurich 1919 (dissertation).
  • About the demarcation between civil law and administrative law institutions in the case law of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. Tübingen 1924 (habilitation thesis).
  • The interpretation of the Swiss federal constitution. Inaugural address given on July 11, 1925 (= Law and State in Past and Present. Vol. 39). Tuebingen 1925.
  • Sources on the history of the separation of state and church. Tubingen 1926.
  • The public law of the Swiss Confederation, collection of the more important federal laws, federal decrees and federal ordinances of constitutional and administrative content, systematically compiled, with references and subject index. Zurich 1930; 2nd edition 1938.
  • The constitutional jurisdiction of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court: The constitutional complaint. Zurich 1933.
  • The constitutional law of the Swiss cantons. Zurich 1941; Reprinted in 1979.
  • The power of attorney of the Confederation. Zurich 1945.
  • Swiss Federal State Law, revision of the first half of the work of the same name by F. Fleiner, reprint of the 1949 edition. Zurich 1965; further reprints in 1969, 1976 and 1978.
  • General lessons of the rule of law administrative law: General administrative law of the rule of law. Zurich 1960.
  • Selected Writings. Edited by Alfred Kölz. Zurich 1994, with an appreciation from the editor (p. 331 ff.).

literature

  • Christoph Bernoulli : Youth memories of the Giacometti family, dedicated to Ms. Annetta Giacometti on her 90th birthday. In: You . 22nd year, February 1962, No. 252, p. 16 ff.
  • Werner Kägi : On his 60th birthday on September 26, 1953. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 26, 1953, No. 2224, Sheet 5, morning edition (first part); The New Zurich Times. September 26, 1953, No. 2225, sheet 6, morning edition (second part).
  • Werner Kägi: Zaccaria Giacometti. For his 70th birthday on September 26th. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 26, 1963, No. 3816, Sheet 4, morning edition.
  • Werner Kägi: Zaccaria Giacometti - The life's work of the Swiss constitutional and administrative lawyer. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 6, 1970, No. 413, pp. 51 f.
  • Andreas Kley : Zaccaria Giacometti - Theory of Constitutional Law as Art? In: Schweizerische Juristen-Zeitung . Vol. 107 (2011), pp. 429-439.
  • Andreas Kley: History of public law in Switzerland. Zurich / St. Gallen 2011.
  • Andreas Kley: Bregaglia - Zurigo: Luoghi di vita e di attività del docente di diritto costituzionale Zaccaria Giacometti (1893-1970). In: Quaderni grigionitaliani. Vol. 82 (2013), H. 1, pp. 37-64.
  • Andreas Kley: From Stampa to Zurich. The constitutional lawyer Zaccaria Giacometti, his life and work and his family of artists from Bergell . Zurich 2014.
  • Alfred Kölz : Zaccaria Giacometti. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 11, 2005 , accessed December 29, 2019 .
  • Renato Stampa: L'uomo e il giurista. In: Quaderni grigionitaliani. Vol. 40 (1971), H. 2, p. 85 ff.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Hochschulnachrichten (St. Gallen). No. 55 (summer semester 1962), p. 17.
  2. ^ University of Zurich, Faculty of Law, Giacometti Library
  3. ^ On Giacometti's doctrine of constitutional law, see Andreas Kley: Zaccaria Giacometti - Staatsrechtslehre als Kunst, in: SJZ 2011, pp. 429–439.
  4. ^ Zaccaria Giacometti: General teachings of the constitutional administrative law, Zurich 1960, p. 286.
  5. ^ Andreas Kley: History of Public Law in Switzerland, Zurich / St. Gallen 2011. p. 119 ff.
  6. ^ Zaccaria Giacometti: The present constitution, in: Schweizerische Hochschulzeitung 1942, pp. 139–154, p. 144.
personal data
SURNAME Giacometti, Zaccaria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Stampa
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1970
Place of death Zurich