The application of the Vaud law on begging is suspended – Swiss Catholic Portal

The entry into force of the new law on begging in the canton of Vaud is delayed, following an appeal filed by nine people with the Constitutional Court. Among them, Anne-Catherine Reymond, president of the Sant’Egidio community in Lausanne, and Hélène Küng, pastor. They see it as an attack on religious freedom.

Following a judgment handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in a case involving the canton of Geneva in January 2021, the Swiss cantons which had banned begging on their territory (including Basel, Geneva and Vaud) had to take action back. Both the principle of proportionality and that of the protection of passers-by must be taken into account, specified at the time the European Court, which concluded that only intrusive or aggressive begging and in places such as queues or transport public could be prohibited.

Restrict but forbid

There is often something disturbing about a beggar, the Jesuit Etienne Perrot commented on the magazine’s website in 2021. choose on the occasion of this decision of the European Court of Human Rights. “As with any feeling of visual, olfactory or audible discomfort, that caused by the presence of a beggar can justify regulation, which however cannot result in a radical ban. Begging is therefore recognized as a human right.”

The political authorities concerned have therefore reviewed their copies. Failing to prohibit all begging on their territory, they have adopted new laws to restrict the exercise of it. This is the case in 2021 of the Grand Council of the canton of Basel-City and the Geneva Grand Council, where these laws are now applied.

The Vaudois Grand Council only approved the new law restricting begging in September 2024. Its application, planned for 2025, is now delayed, the daily announced on December 7, 2024. 24 hours. Nine people appealed against the new law to the Constitutional Court. Pending its court decision, suspensive effect is granted.

Economic freedom and religious freedom

Among the people who appealed, we find a Swiss homeless person and four Romanian Roma. Their lawyer believes that the new law violates their economic freedom, as these people have no other means of subsistence.

The applicants emphasize, in fact, that the list of places where begging will henceforth be prohibited is so long that it amounts to a disguised ban: public transport and its stops, cemeteries, markets, terraces and entrances to public establishments, entrances to buildings residential and office buildings, public buildings and facilities, shops, medical and care establishments, museums, theaters and cinemas, and immediate proximity to schools, nurseries and playgrounds, banks, post offices, ATMs, parking meters.

Four other applicants, for their part, invoke religious freedom to challenge the new law. They are the former national councilor Luc Recordon, the pastor and former director of the Protestant Social Center Hélène Küng, Véra Tchérémissinoff, president of the Lausanne action and solidarity association Opre Rrom, and Anne- Catherine Reymond, founder and president of the Sant’Egidio Catholic association in Lausanne.

Almsgiving and the experience of Grace

For years, Christian institutions have been working in Switzerland against the ban on begging, an option considered discriminatory against the poorest. They invite us not to conflate beggars with people who commit or plan reprehensible acts.

But why invoke the attack on religious freedom? Because the Bible encourages almsgiving. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, enjoins one to be generous to those in need: “You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to the needy and poor you have in the land” (Dt 15:11). . But above all, as Etienne Perrot sj pointed out, because almsgiving is born from the experience of Grace, a potentially universal experience since it is at the heart of all mutual recognition and all humanization. “Under some well-known names (Buddhist compassion, Christian charity, Muslim alms), this gratuity without which there is no human relationship is, rightly, one of the pillars – and the criterion – of all authentic religion, whether civil religions or revealed religions.”

“From a Christian point of view, the argument of disturbing public order bothers me,” Anne-Catherine Reymond explained for her part in 2017 already on cath.ch. We talk about the psychological disorder caused by the presence of beggars. In itself, this question is legitimate. But the response to this disorder cannot be ‘I forbid you from existing’. If social peace is endangered by the poor who beg, what response should we give as Christians? For me the only one is: ‘I meet you, I humanize you and I humanize myself’.” (cath.ch/24h/choisir/lb)