This was done in accordance with the cantonal laws on administrative detention or, after 1912, based on the relevant provisions of the Swiss Civil Code.

Source content

Confinement was ordered for periods of one or two years, or for indefinite periods. The appellate authority was the same as that which had issued the detention order, that is, the Grand Council of the Canton of Schwyz. The procedure did not make any provision for review by an independent judicial authority. It was for that reason that members of the Schuler family, the wife and children of a Kaltbach inmate, addressed a complaint to the Federal Council.  The latter in most cases forwarded such petitions to the justice division of the Federal Department of Justice and Police, which responded with a standardised letter to the effect that the federal government lacked jurisdiction and that the parties concerned should contact the competent cantonal authorities. In point of fact, however, both the Federal Council and the Federal Supreme Court did have the authority to take up such complaints in cases where constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights had been violated.

The inmates in correctional labour facilities often attempted to escape. They would then be placed on a wanted list by the police and, if captured, be punished with solitary confinement and, in some cases, with beatings, in clear violation of their constitutional rights. Beatings also took place in other cases when inmates put up resistance. It was against such use of physical punishment in the Kaltbach facility, among other things, that the Schuler family filed its complaint. This point in the complaint was in fact taken up by the Federal Council, as is documented by the Federal Council Report to the Federal Assembly concerning the Complaint filed by the Schuler Family (in German).

The intervention by the federal government prompted the Grand Council of Schwyz to issue a reprimand to the then director of the Kaltbach facility. The prison director nevertheless remained in office.

Research questions

Many complaints written by administrative detainees were confiscated and not forwarded to their addressees. In other cases the competent authorities refused to take them up. While the Federal Council did, in the present case, respond to the complaint, it addressed solely the issue of the use of physical punishment. The question thus arises as to what other findings can be derived from such complaints that are also of relevance to our research. As with the testimony offered by oral history, such documents can provide evidence on the reality of the practices used in detention facilities and of the daily lives of the inmates – information that is generally obscured in the official records on the handling of complaints, or in the commemorative publications and annual reports published by the various authorities and institutions. The archives contain a great many such complaint letters and other documents that were written independently of each other, but which describe instances of abuses and maltreatment of a very similar nature. They relate to a large number of different facilities and bear dates covering the entire period being studied by the IEC.

The complaint filed by the Schuler family provides examples of many of the most important hardships administrative detainees faced: poor quality food, poor medical care, arbitrary treatment, preferential treatment for inmates with greater financial resources, harsh forms of disciplinary confinement, restriction of movement by attachment, psychological torment by staff members, sexual abuse of inmates, detention of disabled persons in correctional labour facilities, censorship and confiscation of letters to the outside world. None of these issues were addressed by the Federal Council. That same body also failed to look into allegations that a castration had been performed on the son of a Kaltbach inmate, which is also referred to in the Schuler family’s complaint.

For the research of the IEC, a further question arises as to why the federal authorities chose to address certain complaints in great detail, while giving no, or only minimal, attention to many others. A contributing factor in the case of the Schuler family complaint was certainly the fact that they were supported throughout the entire process by the Social Democratic Party and the Grütli Association – beginning with the drafting of the complaint and continuing through the appeals procedure before all competent federal authorities, up to and including the Federal Assembly. Further, all of this occurred against the backdrop of the intensifying politicisation of social conflicts, as evidenced, for example by the 1918 General Strike (in German, French and Italian).

T. Huonker/Translation

Source

Letter of Complaint from the Schuler family to the Federal Department of Justice, 1921.

Signature: Swiss Federal Archives (SFA): E4110A#1000/1807#19* Familie Schuler, Zürich. Beschwerde wegen Verletzung des Art. 65, Abs. 2 der BV (Anwendung körperlicher Strafen als Disziplinarmittel in der Korrektionsanstalt Kaltbach, Schwyz), 1922-1922 (Dossier).