Among other things, that statute imposed a requirement that the person concerned be heard by the local District Office before the procedure was concluded. The present record was transcribed at such a hearing conducted at the District Office of the city of Schwyz, in the summer of 1966.

Research questions and contents

The source provides us with an opportunity to critically analyse the conduct of hearings as an administrative instrument. At the same time, it also gives us insight into the way the person concerned viewed the measure under consideration. It is thus an important document for studying the possibilities that were available to administrative detainees for defending themselves, and the limits of those possibilities.

Questions that may be asked in studying this source include such things as: How did the individual concerned express herself at the hearing? What possibilities were available to her for making her position known? To what extent did this enable her to influence the outcome of the procedure? What were the questions posed by the authorities, and were the responses taken into account when they made their decision?

In the present source, the individual concerned denounced the order to «institutionalise» her, and referred to the Kaltbach facility as a “prison”, indicating that she considered her detention there as a criminal punishment. A comparison with the official records of other hearing shows that such hearings were in many cases treated by the authorities as a mere formality and that, in contrast to the present case, only minimal notes were kept. Individual statements by the individuals being heard were transcribed, but were only rarely taken into account by the authorities in the actual decision-making process. This shows how little the individuals concerned were in fact able to influence the outcome of the procedure. They often found themselves in what can only be described as a hopeless situation.

Access to the source

The present source is part of a case file that was opened by the Grand Council of the Canton of Schwyz for a decision on ordering the administrative detention of an individual in the Kaltbach Correctional Labour Facility. The amount of documentation contained in such case files varied widely. In some cases only the order itself was kept on file; in others, also such documents as psychiatric evaluations, correspondence with local municipal authorities or written records of hearings were also included. In order to perform a more thorough analysis of the decision-making processes, it is therefore important that the records of the authorities that applied for the order – applications for administrative detention orders were normally filed by the respective municipalities – also be taken into account.  Such sources consist primarily of the records maintained by welfare and guardianship authorities. 

With the help of these widely diverse sources, the IEC analyses such things as the interpretative conventions and the presuppositions concerning society and human nature that underlay the conclusions reached by the representatives of the decision-making authorities. A further objective is to provide a description of the process of stigmatisation that administrative detainees inevitably went through.

Remarks on the source

The record of the hearing was prepared by District Office personnel. The selective transcription of statements that were made, along with the wording used and the asymmetrical balance of power between the persons present at the hearing are factors to which particular attention must be paid when analysing the source.

Personal details have been redacted in order to protect the anonymity of the detainee.

F. Grossman/Translation

Source

Record of hearing by the District Office of Schwyz, summer 1966.

Signature: Staatsarchiv des Kantons Schwyz: Akten 3/14_861/170 RRB 2338.