Legal Certainty: A Cornerstone of Good Governance

Legal certainty is more than just a legal concept; it is a fundamental principle of any functioning legal system and an essential element of good governance. In a world where law is becoming increasingly complex, legal certainty provides the stable foundation upon which citizens, businesses, and institutions base their decisions. But what exactly is legal certainty, and why is it so crucial for trust in the state and its institutions?

The Essence of Legal Certainty

Legal certainty means that laws must be clear, understandable, and, most importantly, predictable. This clarity is necessary so that every individual knows the legal consequences of their actions. Without this predictability, it would be nearly impossible to make personal and business decisions that align with the law. People would constantly fear unknowingly violating obscure or arbitrarily interpreted laws.

Trust Through Stability

Another central aspect of legal certainty is the protection of trust. Laws and regulations must not only be clear but also stable. It is essential that established norms are not arbitrarily or retroactively changed. This stability builds the trust needed to make long-term plans, whether in private life, business, or institutional contexts.

Precision in Legislation: A Must for Fair Application

The precision of laws is also crucial. Unclear or ambiguous regulations can lead to inconsistent judicial rulings and, consequently, to injustice. When laws are precisely and unambiguously formulated, it facilitates consistent application across all cases, which in turn strengthens trust in the legal system.

No Retroactivity: Protection Against State Arbitrary Actions

A fundamental aspect of legal certainty is the prohibition of retroactive laws. This principle protects citizens from being penalized for actions that were legal at the time they were carried out. It is a safeguard against state arbitrariness and a guarantee that trust in the legal order will not be shaken.

Consistency in Jurisprudence

Equally important is consistency in jurisprudence. If courts frequently change their rulings without clear and understandable justification, trust in legal certainty is undermined. Consistent jurisprudence provides citizens with security and protects them from unforeseeable legal surprises. Thus, while public administration plays a crucial role in upholding legal certainty, the judiciary is particularly significant. Courts ultimately decide how laws are interpreted and applied, shaping the understanding and implementation of law, and contributing significantly to the stability of the legal order.

Legal Certainty as a Foundation of Good Governance

Good governance requires more than just the creation of laws. It demands a legal environment in which citizens know their rights and obligations and can rely on the legal order to be dependable and fair. Legal certainty is thus a key to a stable and just society. It fosters trust in the state and its institutions and forms the foundation for sustainable economic growth and social peace.

In a rapidly changing world, ensuring legal certainty is a central task of every government. Only by doing so can trust in the legal order be maintained, and citizens can live in an environment where justice and fairness are the highest principles. Good governance without legal certainty is unthinkable—it is the rock upon which every functioning legal system rests.

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SMALL SWITZERLAND: GAPS IN THE MEDIA COVERAGE

In most of its scandals,

Switzerland proves to be too small,
and its elite too tightly interconnected (due to Switzerland’s small size, everyone is practically on top of each other),

for its media to report independently and objectively. At best, one receives politically tinted reports and reports that blatantly reveal who is good friends with whom. Switzerland is simply too small to be independent in its media reporting.

Swiss Media Landscape: Manageable Political Blocks

The Swiss media landscape is neatly divided into political blocks, with the bourgeois block having the far greatest media reach.

Most media are thoroughly entangled with politics and the economy, and with their particular interests.

This division of the media into political blocks should at least ensure that the different political currents of the country are balanced. One would think that for every scandal, there would be a publication interested in reporting it from the perspective of their political masters. But this is not the case. Switzerland is simply too small: there are too few editorially independent media that would cover everything that is objectively considered a scandal in an independent and neutral manner. Too many Swiss media report selectively and distort reality according to the agenda of their paymasters. And too often, this agenda is a bourgeois one. In these editorial offices, reports about grievances, which at least people with a social value attitude would consider grievances, simply do not fit. Such reports are not of interest. Much more interesting are reports that reflect the vain interests of the bourgeoisie. The same phenomenon occurs, in the opposite direction of course, in the few Swiss media with a left-wing profile.

Coverage of Public Interest through Media Diversity

In a large country with a colorful, diverse media landscape, there would surely be a paper for every politically colored scandal. Right-wing papers are interested in the scandals of the Left and vice versa, the papers of the Left in the scandals of the Rich. Thus, the media landscapes of Western countries once comprehensively covered the public interest with reports from various political viewpoints. In Switzerland, this coverage does not work because the Swiss media landscape is one-sidedly right-leaning and reports in a one-sidedly right-leaning filtered manner. The few remaining editorially independent and left-leaning media lack the capacity to counterbalance the one-sidedness of the Swiss media landscape due to their marginalization. Therefore, reports that would be standard for publication in other countries are often overlooked in Swiss media.

Gaps in the Spectrum

Firstly, Swiss media houses fail to fully cover the political spectrum. Almost all of them revel in the bourgeois, right-wing corner. Secondly, reports on matters that do not clearly align with the agenda of a Swiss media house stand no chance of being published. If neither distinctly bourgeois nor distinctly left-wing media pick up a story, it simply falls through the gaps in the spectrum of Swiss media coverage. And no one is interested. Because no one cares. Why should they?

The Primitive Relationship of Switzerland to the ECHR

Switzerland has signed and ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). So far, so good? However, Switzerland has not signed the Additional Protocol to the ECHR that provides effective protection against discrimination. In this regard, Switzerland is in the “good company” of France and the United Kingdom, which also have not signed this protocol. As a result, the scope of discrimination protection under the ECHR for Switzerland is limited to the articles of the ECHR itself. This means that cases of discrimination related to Swiss federal law, cantonal, or municipal laws—which account for the majority of discrimination cases—cannot be brought before the European Court of Human Rights. What would officially be considered a violation of human rights in the sense of discrimination in any civilized European country, cannot, regrettably, be considered “isolated cases” in Switzerland. Rather, discriminatory denials of rights and abuses of law, to name just two examples from the arsenal of discrimination, are commonplace in Switzerland. If the Swiss can afford outright discrimination hunts on minorities, considered regressive in every civilized culture, then we should not hesitate to call Swiss culture primitive by name.