Begging was at the heart of a long, unfinished debate on Tuesday in the Grand Council of Vaud. The deputies began to reframe the State Council’s project with stricter restrictions. The already well-informed discussions will continue next week.
As a reminder, begging was banned in the canton of Vaud in 2018, but this ban then became inapplicable following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2021, concerning a Geneva case. In essence, the Strasbourg judges considered that the unqualified repression of begging was not in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
The Council of State has therefore had to adapt and propose a new bill in July 2023. It establishes a basic principle: begging is permitted as long as it does not infringe on the passer-by’s freedom of choice. It is planned to punish intrusive or aggressive begging. And begging in a certain number of “sensitive” places.
A multitude of amendments
In committee, many amendments were tabled to specify these places, to add more and extend the areas of prohibition, in short, to tighten the screw a little more. The State Councilor in charge of the file, Vassilis Venizelos, was keen to warn against “being too heavy-handed” in order to avoid future appeals, particularly to the ECHR.
The minister also recalled in substance that begging was not a security problem in itself from the police point of view, but more a feeling of insecurity of the people. And only one case of human trafficking, condemned in 2013, was recorded in the canton, he stressed. There is no resurgence of aggression of beggars, he added.
The introduction to this issue foreshadowed the length of the debates to come, as did the two reports – one from the majority and one from the minority – from the committee responsible for examining the government bill. With an expected left-right divide. On the one hand, the message was not to criminalize poverty and to authorize passive begging, and on the other hand, to respond to the general fed-up feeling of the population of the main cities of the canton.
“A scourge”
The UDC had the strongest words, with the party defending a total ban on begging or at least the broadest possible ban. Several MPs also fired broad shots at the ECHR, an obstacle to Swiss sovereignty.
PLR Guy Gaudard spoke of begging as “a scourge that affects the daily lives of many citizens and urban centers.” His party spearheaded many amendments aimed at further framing and strengthening the State Council’s bill.
On the left, EP elected official Joëlle Minacci was the great defender of the most deprived. “The bill is equivalent to a partial ban on begging. There is a problem of vision that is limited to repression without finding a solution to begging and poverty. We cannot drive out begging without solving poverty,” she argued.
Two hours of discussions will not have allowed us to make much headway on the whole law, but will have already allowed us to anchor a basic paradigm and then set some initial restrictions.
The deputies finally voted in favour of the Council of State’s version of a long-contested substantive article. They opted for “begging is prohibited if it is likely to infringe on the passer-by’s freedom of choice”.
ats/miro
