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The Federal Supreme Court revokes the nullity of the resignation of Professor Iris Ritzmann. The University of Zurich doesn’t have to keep you busy.
Giving up college was abusive, but not void: Iris Ritzmann.
Photo: Walter Bieri (Keystone)
The first department of social law of the Federal Supreme Court has a Complaint from the University of Zurich partially approved with three to two votes. It concluded that the dismissal of Zurich Senior Lecturer Iris Ritzmann was abusive, but not void. Ritzmann is only entitled to financial compensation, as stipulated in the Zurich Personnel Law. The case goes back to the lower court for a new decision.
In November last year, the Zurich Administrative Court ruled that the removal of Professor Ritzmann by the University of Zurich is null and void. The university fired Ritzmann in late April 2014 for violating official secrecy. The university based his dismissal on a national assessment of phone and email data, as well as evidence the prosecutor had found during a house search at Ritzmann.
However, the Zurich Personnel Law does not have a so-called nullity, as stated by the Federal Supreme Court. This means that provisions like employment cannot be described as completely ineffective. The court of first instance did not provide sufficient evidence of why it had decided the nullity, therefore the decision was arbitrary and had to be reevaluated, according to the Federal Court.
Controversial evidence
However, in the parallel criminal proceedings, Ritzmann was acquitted of the charge of violation of official secrecy because the prosecutor had obtained the evidence illegally. Therefore, the data could not be taken into account.
The administrative court concluded that the university should not have considered the illegally obtained evidence for the termination. However, without this evidence, the University of Zurich would have absolutely no reason to initiate dismissal proceedings against Ritzmann. Therefore, the ending seems completely unmotivated and therefore arbitrary. (Sentence 8C_7 / 2020 of 03/11/2020)
