The Federal Court will have to rule in two unusual cases to say the least. And the two have one thing in common: the vote for better protection of biodiversity, rejected by 63% by the Swiss on September 22. For the first, it is an 11-year-old from Zurich. The little one believes that the vote should be considered null and void, on the grounds that she was not able to vote. Biodiversity being the “foundation of its future”, she considers that her opinion should have been taken into account.
And if she is addressing the High Court today, it is because her request has just been officially rejected by her cantonal authorities. The latter responded very officially that the fact that she considers herself “capable of discernment, with regard to environmental questions, changes nothing. A right to grant the right to vote to a minor cannot be inferred from either federal or international law.”
The second case also comes from the canton of Zurich. And this time, it is because the wild bees were unable to vote that the vote should be canceled. The text states that “the right to vote in environmental matters must be granted to wild bees in order to preserve their dignity as creatures and to protect them from extermination by man.” The request even comes with a list of races that deserve to have the right to vote.
Like the first, this second request received a very serious response from the Canton of Zurich, explaining why bees cannot vote. But the person who filed it was not satisfied, so she also went to the Federal Court. Note that the committee which launched the biodiversity initiative says it is aware of these cases, because the members discovered them on a legal site. But they do not know the identity of the complainants and are not in contact with them.
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