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“Not Responsible for Electoral Recommendation”: Candidates for Lauber’s Successor Fail
The federal prosecutor position is re-advertised. Parliament’s Judicial Commission does not want to recommend either of the two remaining candidates for the election of the highest police agency.
Out since August: Former US Attorney Michael Lauber still has no successor. Image: keystone
The Federal Public Ministry (BA) will remain without staff until at least March 2021. As the judicial commission announced on Wednesday, the position of federal prosecutor will be announced again. Instead of the winter session that begins next week, the United Federal Assembly should only elect a new federal prosecutor during the spring session in March 2021.
The position became vacant due to the resignation of Michael Lauber in August 2020. The former federal prosecutor thus anticipated possible impeachment proceedings. Since then, the nation’s highest law enforcement agency has been run on an interim basis by two deputies from Laubers.
No one has all the skills
Reason for the extra round: The judicial commission was not satisfied with the quality of the requests presented. In the end there were only two people left in the race. The General Prosecutor of Geneva Olivier Jornot (51), a member of the FDP, and the non-party Andreas Müller (57) from the canton of Friborg, who currently serves as a prosecutor in the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (BA).
The commission heard Jornot and Müller for the second time on Wednesday after both underwent an external evaluation process. The majority of the 17 committee members of the National Council and the Council of States then pulled the rope. Neither Jornot nor Müller bring “all the personal and professional skills” that are needed for “such an exposed office,” the commission wrote in a statement. “We believe that a recommendation for one of the two candidates would not have been justifiable,” explains the president of the Commission, Andrea Caroni, upon request.
Andrea Caroni standing up from the FDP. Image: keystone
The position will now be advertised again immediately, announces FDP Caroni Council of States. The application period runs until the beginning of the year. Then things go in rapid succession: the responsible subcommittee meets on January 20, a first hearing with the candidates takes place on February 10, and a second on February 24.
300,000 francs annual salary
This ends the first unsuccessful attempt to find a successor to Lauber. The procedure had been under an unfortunate star from the beginning. The failure of several prestigious criminal proceedings by the BA, the disputes surrounding Michael Lauber and his unrecorded meetings with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Lauber’s public conflicts with the supervisory authority of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (AB-BA), criticism in the media Political and legal circles: All this damages the reputation of the institution and the attractiveness of the position of federal prosecutor
With an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs, sovereignty over an annual budget of 70 to 80 million Swiss francs and 200 employees, it has a lot to offer. But the incumbent of the position is in the public eye like almost no other federal employee: “Federal Prosecutor is a position between the hammer of politics and the anvil of the judiciary,” Senior Vice President of the Council of States Hannes Germann told the ” NZZ am Sonntag “.
Resinous search
Only half a dozen applications were received for the position. Half of them have already been resolved in the preselection, and another candidacy did not pass the first hearing. For the remaining candidates Jornot and Müller, the end came in the last step of the two-stage process. This was threatened with premature termination two weeks ago. According to Radio SRF, at that time only a small majority of the commission rejected the request to advertise the position again without waiting for the outcome of the evaluation process and the second hearing of Jornot and Müller.
Why the judicial commission decided to take this step two weeks later, its president Andrea Caroni does not want to reveal in detail. It refers to the press release that there is a desire for a “person with many years of experience in a comparable position and extensive management skills” who is “suitable to bring calm to an authority that has been a hot topic in recent years. years”. .
“The pool of candidates is expanding”
For the second attempt, the judicial commission wants to increase the age limit to 68 years. Until now, a federal lawyer would have to retire at age 64 and a federal lawyer at 65. The judicial commission asks the legal commissions of the National Council and the Council of States to adapt the relevant legal basis. According to Andrea Caroni, the judicial commission only became aware of the existence of this age limit in the course of the process: “It is lower than that of federal judges and normal federal administrative employees and discriminates against female applicants compared to female applicants. male, “said the Ausserrhoder Council of States.
The change was not made with respect to a specific person who did not apply due to the age limit, Caroni emphasizes: “But of course the pool of candidates will be expanded.” It is conceivable, for example, that experienced criminal prosecutors from the cantons around the age of 60 would not have applied due to the age of the guillotine. He hopes that the second attempt will also receive new applications for other reasons: “There are always people who do not venture out the first time, but then change their mind. It is also conceivable that the now-failed candidacy of well-known Geneva Attorney General Olivier Jornots deterred other competitors.
Jornot’s troubled past
Caroni does not want to reveal in detail why no one did the race on the first lap. Olivier Jornot, as the longtime chief of the Geneva police authorities, is likely to have met many requirements. The former Geneva Councilor is seen as a strong, assertive leader, experienced in dealing with the media and has great organizational talent.
Strong but short-tempered leadership: Olivier Jornot. Image: keystone
It is questionable whether the desired calm would have returned to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office with him at the helm: Jornot can be irascible and has repeatedly caused negative headlines with his behavior: As a councilor in 2004, he got into such a violent confrontation with a couple in the parking lot of a mall that was convicted of assault.
And in 2016 he had to go to the Geneva judiciary because he got too close to a drunken subordinate in a Geneva nightclub at his agency’s New Year’s Eve party. Furthermore, the CH Media investigation showed that Jornot, who likes to act like a tough “sheriff,” had possibly unjustifiably saved a Geneva chief physician accused of being charged.
Little known to the public: Andreas Müller. Image: keystone
Against the second candidate, Andreas Müller, whose name was only known earlier in the week through the Tamedia investigation, it was mainly his lack of management experience that spoke. As a legal service employee, you know the inner workings of the federal prosecutor’s office. The federal prosecutor and former investigating judge and juvenile prosecutor has extensive experience in criminal prosecution. But in the eyes of most of the Commission, he probably lacked the experience in dealing with the media and politics that is necessary at the head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
