Federal Administrative Court can create five additional posts
Published: Tuesday, Feb 27th 2024, 10:50
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The number of judges at the Federal Administrative Court will be temporarily increased from 65 to 70. After the Council of States, the National Council also approved a corresponding bill on Tuesday.
The upper chamber reached its decision by 125 votes to 65, with no abstentions. The Council of States had already approved the amendment to the Ordinance of the Federal Assembly in the winter session. The business is ready for the final vote.
The draft decree was prepared by the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of States (RK-S). The background to this is the increased number of asylum applications - and therefore also appeals against asylum decisions. The court also has more work to do because of the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse, as was mentioned several times during the debate.
In March last year, the court based in St. Gallen announced that it could not guarantee compliance with the statutory treatment deadlines with the current personnel resources.
This is a temporary increase. The decree text that has now been approved also stipulates that judges who retire will not be replaced for the time being from 2029 - until 65 full-time positions are filled again.
As the second chamber, the National Council also said yes to an increase in the number of part-time judges in the criminal and appeal chambers of the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona from the current three to four. The new post is to go to a person of Italian mother tongue. The court had justified the corresponding request with more Italian-language dossiers and a decrease in personnel resources in this language.
The SVP unsuccessfully applied for both bills to be rejected. It was of the opinion that neither the Federal Administrative Court nor the Federal Criminal Court had taken the necessary rationalization measures to date. An individual motion by SVP parliamentary group leader Thomas Aeschi (ZG), who called for an increase to a maximum of 68 judges at the Federal Administrative Court, was also rejected.
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