"Rechtsfolge" - The Law Faculty's New Podcast

Who are the Human Rights Law Clinic and what do they do?
How should a law degree be structured in order to prepare students for legal practice?

The Human Rights Law Clinic is a teaching program at the University of Bern in which students work on real cases over the course of two or three semesters in cooperation with external attorneys. The cases concern issues in the fields of migration law, criminal law and the execution of custodial measures, police law, and social welfare law. The Law Clinic is supervised by Professors Alberto Achermann, Jörg Künzli, and Jonas Weber, as well as members of the mid-level academic staff at the University of Bern.

The aim is to give students the opportunity, already during their studies, to work on real cases involving human rights issues and to develop practical legal skills. In Episode 19 of Rechtsfolge, we discuss the Law Clinic together with Jann Schaub and Enja Jäggi, exploring questions surrounding legal education, the development of a critical understanding of the law, and access to justice.

“Data as consideration” describes a business model in which a (digital) service or an other form of output is provided and, in return, the end user consents to the processing of personal data. The provision of such data is regarded as consideration and thus as a form of payment. Numerous examples of this business model can be found in everyday life, where personal data is effectively commercialized. This illustrates both the economic value of data in commercial transactions and the extent to which we have become accustomed to “paying” with our data. The concept of “data as consideration” raises several interesting legal questions, which we would like to explore in Episode 18 of Rechtsfolge together with MLaw and  Attorney Michael Toneatti.

Michael Toneatti studied law at the University of Bern, where he obtained a Master of Law degree. After being admitted to the Bern Bar in 2022, he worked as an attorney before returning to academia. He is currently a research assistant and doctoral candidate under Prof. Dr. Mirjam Eggen at the Department of Private Law of the University of Bern and is presently writing his dissertation on the contractual design of data-related agreements.

In this episode, we ask:
-How does our legal system deal with data?
-Is it possible, for example in the context of online services such as the use of software, to “pay” through consent to the processing of one’s own data?
-How should consent be classified from a doctrinal legal perspective?

In a special episode of the podcast “Rechtsfolge”, the new social media team talks about science communication and the podcast project.

On 21 September 2020, climate activists occupied Bern's Bundesplatz. They demanded an effective climate policy. At almost the same time, people from the „#StopIsolation-Kollektiv" demonstrated for decent housing conditions for refugees. Although both demonstrations were unauthorised, only one of the two gatherings was broken up by the police. This example shows the close intertwining of demonstrations with the concept of (in)equal treatment and, according to Manuela Hugentobler, is exemplary of the gaps in the legal sciences in the area of (qualified) inequality and democratic participation. 

Manuela Hugentobler studied law at the University of Basel and graduated with a Master of Law. She will soon be completing her doctorate at the Institute of Public Law at the University of Bern under Prof Dr Markus Müller. She is devoting her work to democracy, discrimination and political participation as part of the Gender Studies doctoral programme. Since 2022, Ms Hugentobler has been working at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies (IZFG) as a research assistant, lecturer and project manager. Among other things, Manuela Hugentobler is in charge of the ‚Gleichstellungsdatenbank’ project, which collects and processes procedures and decisions based on the Gender Equality Act. She is a board member of the Swiss Institute for Feminist Legal Studies and Gender Law and of Democratic Lawyers Switzerland.

Anyone who commits a crime is not only defying legal norms, the violation of which must be punished. They also inflict injustice and suffering on individuals. Crime destroys the interpersonal relationship between perpetrator and victim, as well as that with society. And restoring these relationships represents an intrinsic human need for conflict resolution - a need that cannot be met by punishment alone. Recently, there have been calls for restorative models of justice in criminal law and criminal procedural law - for restorative justice. We explore this concept in Rechtsfolge 16 with Prof. Ineke Pruin.

Prof. Ineke Pruin studied law at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald, the Universidad País Vasco in San Sebastián and the University of Mannheim. She completed her doctorate on German juvenile criminal law at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald and wrote her habilitation on release from prison there. Her academic work focuses on the prison system and rehabilitation. Ineke Pruin has been Associate Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern since 2021.

The Federal Council is of the opinion that Switzerland has already complied with the ECtHR ruling in the climate senior citizens' case. In doing so, it is following the Federal Parliament, which does not wish to comply “further” with the ruling. The vote is at odds with the general assessment that the ECtHR's ground-breaking judgment has laid down central guidelines for Convention rights in the context of climate change. In the 15th legal episode, we delve a little deeper into the matter with Dr. Charlotte Blattner. What has the ECtHR actually ruled in this case and what - contrary to the media echo - has it not? Are Switzerland's efforts to date to mitigate climate change in line with the ECHR's requirements? Can climate protection be advanced through litigation? What scientific and legal gaps need to be closed to this end?

Dr. Charlotte Blattner studied law in Basel and subsequently completed her doctorate at the interface of international and animal law. She conducted research at Queens University in Kingston, Canada, and at Harvard Law School, Boston USA, and has been working as a senior assistant at the Institute of Public Law at the University of Bern's Faculty of Law since 2020. Her habilitation is dedicated to the complex and urgent challenges that climate change poses to Swiss constitutional and administrative law.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which was adopted in 2006, enshrined for the first time at international law level the substantive, procedural and institutional requirements necessary to take better account of the interests of persons with disabilities. Switzerland claims to fulfil these requirements under international law - but shadow reports suggest otherwise. So what are the specific requirements of international law to ensure full enjoyment of all human rights for people with disabilities? How does Swiss law, in particular adult protection law, deal with people with disabilities? And how can the two opposites of autonomy and the need for protection be reconciled? These and other points are discussed in this episode with MLaw Noel Stucki.

Noel Stucki studied law at the University of Bern and graduated with a Master of Law. He is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the Institute for Public Law at the Chair of Constitutional and International Law of Prof Dr Jörg Künzli.

If you want to experience justice, it may be necessary for you to go to court from time to time. While our legal system distinguishes between civil, criminal and administrative law, it is difficult in practice to make a clear distinction between these areas of law. If a criminal offense is committed, for example, the state and those affected are not only faced with the question of guilt or innocence, but for injured private individuals there is also the question of how their civil law claims should be dealt with. So how do criminal and civil proceedings interact? What principles characterize these two areas of procedural law and in what respects do they differ? In Rechtsfolge 13, we spoke with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Brönnimann about the interfaces between criminal and civil procedural law, which have been little discussed to date.

Prof. Dr. Brönnimann studied law in Bern and Berlin and was a research assistant at the University of Bern in the fields of commercial law, civil procedural law and debt collection and bankruptcy law. He wrote his dissertation on "The burden of proof and substantiation in Swiss civil procedure law" and has been an honorary professor since 2000. In addition to his many years as a lawyer in a Bernese commercial law firm, Prof. Brönnimann teaches Swiss and Bernese civil procedural law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern.

The Swiss Federal Constitution states succinctly in Art. 26: "Property is guaranteed". The guarantee of property has been one of our constitutionally protected rights since the 19th Century. But what exactly does the guarantee of property protect? What does property mean? And does this fundamental right still correspond to the economic, social and technological developments of our time? Or do we need to move toward "the new property"? We spoke to Dr. iur. Stefan Schlegel about this in Rechtsfolge 12.

Dr. iur. Stefan Schlegel studied law at the University of Zurich and worked as a research assistant and doctoral candidate in migration law at the University of Bern. After research stays at the University of Toronto and at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Multiethnic and Multireligious Societies in Göttingen, he first worked as a senior assistant at the Institute of Public Law at the University of Bern and was then an Ambizione Fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Since February 2024, Dr. iur. Stefan Schlegel operates as the Director of the Swiss Human Rights Institution (SMRI). In his habilitation, Dr. Stefan Schlegel examines the scope of protection of the property guarantee in detail and works, among other things, on new forms of ownership.

6,445 people were imprisoned in Switzerland at the beginning of 2023, the majority of which are not serving a sentence, but held captive under the law on measures. Today, it is well known that some of these people are "false positives" - people who are deemed dangerous but who would not reoffend if they were released. How - if at all - can such a system be legitimized under the rule of law? How does the law understand "dangerousness"? And in particular: Can we measure it? We discussed these issues with Julia Lehmann, Vera Moser and Rafael Studer in Rechtsfolge 11.

Julia Lehmann, Vera Moser and Rafael Studer are doctoral students and assistants at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bern. Among other things, they deal intensively with questions of the law on measures. Their article "Falsch-Positive im Massnahmenrecht - Eine Debattenanalyse" was just published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Kriminologie und Kriminalpolitik.

Switzerland is Europe's moated castle. Our water is an indispensable resource for our country and the people dependent on it, be it as drinking water, as a resource for food production or hydropower, or for preserving our ecosystems. However, climate change seriously threatens waters, be it its availability, access, or quality. How can water bodies be better protected in law? Should we give water bodies legal personality in order to protect them better? How could a new legal entity for waters be integrated into our legal system? And what consequences would this have? These are just a few of the many questions we discussed with Dr. Fiona Leu in Legal Episode 10.

Dr. Fiona Leu wrote her dissertation on the topic of "Building uncomfortable worlds - An attempt to include surface waters into the modern legal system". She studied law at the Universities of Bern and Hamburg. After passing the bar and working as a research assistant at the University of Lucerne, she worked as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Martino Mona at the Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bern.

For more than one hundred years, the Swiss Civil Code has been determining the legal relationships between private individuals in comprehensive fashion. The code regulates anything from questions about the beginning and end of life, to intricacies of family relationships, and questions of succession and property law. In Switzerland, the Civil Code was written by Eugen Huber, one of Switzerland's best-known jurists. How did this uniquely uniform and encompassing Swiss Civil Code come about and how did Eugen Huber shape it through his expertise? We talked about this with Prof. Dr. Sibylle Hofer in Rechtsfolge 9.

Prof. Dr. Sibylle Hofer is a full professor of legal history and private law at the University of Bern and heads the Institute for Legal History here. Prof. Hofer received her doctorate from the University of Hanover and habilitated at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Her research focuses include the foundations of modern private law, in particular the Swiss Civil Code, as well as Bernese legal history. Prof. Hofer has published her book "Eugen Huber -Vordenker des Schweizer Zivilrechts" in May 2023.

Violence at sporting events - especially football matches - is no longer a rarity in Switzerland. Despite this surge, these events pose major challenges for visitors, clubs, security personnel, and public authorities in general: Why do such riots occur? How can they be prevented? What means can be used to contain violence at football matches, preventively and in repressive manner? And what role does the law play in this? Dr. Alain Brechbühl and Tim Willmann from the interdisciplinary research centre "Violence at Sporting Events" at the University of Bern are dealing intensively with these questions.

Dr. Alain Brechbühl studied sports science and history at the University of Bern and wrote his dissertation on the topic of "Escalation versus non-escalation of fan violence in football". Since 2017, he has been project manager of the Violence at Sporting Events Research Unit.

Tim Willmann is an assistant professor at the Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bern. He is studying law and is working on the legal aspects of violence at football matches as part of the research unit.

What can and should just punishment look like? What is the differences between punishment and coercive preventive measures such as security measures?

We talked about this and other questions with Prof. Mona in Rechtsfolge 7. Martino Mona is Professor of Criminal Law and Philosophy of Law and heads the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bern.

With the advent of digitalisation, health data has become one of the central currencies of our time: Different actors from politics, business, the pharmaceutical industry and research have an interest in using our health data as widely and efficiently as possible. This allows them to measure, analyse, predict and in some cases even manipulate our behaviour. From the electronic patient file to the creation of a Swiss Health Data Space - How can and should the law deal with health data? In Rechtsfolge 6, we sat together with Prof. Dr. iur. Franziska Sprecher to discuss these and other issues related to health data.

Franziska Sprecher is an associate professor of constitutional and administrative law with a special focus on health law at the Institute of Public Law at the University of Bern. Since the beginning of 2020, she has been operating as the director of the Centre for Health Law and Management in Health Care (MiG) at the University of Bern.

What incentives do we have to regulate cryptocurrencies? What risks does climate change pose to the global financial marketplace and what do we mean by sustainable investment? Cryptocurrencies and climate change create new challenges for financial market law. In Legal Episode 5, we spoke with Prof. Dr. Susan Emmenegger about the current and future difficulties in financial market law as well as possible regulatory approaches.

Prof. Dr. Susan Emmenegger is Full Professor for Private and Banking Law, Director of the Institute of Banking Law and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bern. She is also Co-Director of the Civil Law Seminar and Adjunct Professor at Cornell Law School. She was formerly Co-Chair of the Takeover Board and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) since 2021.

What challenges does digitalization pose for the law? What could Alexa or Siri do in a court of law and to what extent does digital decision-making aid the law? What consequences emerge from wrong digital decisions and what does it mean to say that a digital legal system is a market? In this podcast, we discuss these and other exciting questions together with Prof. Dr. Florian Eichel, Prof. Dr. Christian Matt and MLaw RA Daniel Pfäffli. Our guests are members of the interdisciplinary research unit "Law and Digitalization" at the University of Bern and have been dedicated to interdisciplinary work around the opportunities and challenges of digitalization in law for several years.

Prof. Florian Eichel has been a professor for debt collection and bankruptcy law, private international law, and Swiss, foreign, and international civil procedure law since 2018. He is also co-director of the Institute for Private International Law and Procedural Law at the University of Bern.

Prof. Christian Matt is professor and co-director of the Institute of Information Systems at the University of Bern.

Daniel Pfäffli (MLaw) is a lawyer and research assistant at the Institute for Private International Law and Procedural Law.

On April 13, 2022, the District Court of the Canton of Zurich delivered its verdict in the so-called "Vincenz case" - the proceeding touted as a "monster trial" against ex-Raiffeisenbank boss Pierin Vincenz and his business colleague Beat Stocker. The court found the defendants guilty of multiple counts of embezzlement, unfaithful management of a business, commercial fraud, and multiple counts of falsification of documents relating to expense claims. In this podcast, we take a closer look at the corporate law aspects underlying this case, in conversation with Professor Peter V. Kunz: Does the fact that the Raiffeisen bank is organised as a cooperative have a bearing on this case? How do responsibilities under company law differ from those under criminal law? What socio-cultural significance does a sentencing in a theatre hall have? And does Raiffeisen benefit from a state-financed trial?

Peter V. Kunz is a full professor of business law and comparative law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern and heads the Institute for International and National Business Law (IWR) as its managing director. Prof. Kunz's research and teaching activities focus on commercial law, with an emphasis on corporate and stock corporation law, as well as financial market and banking law. Prof. Kunz has authored over 160 legal publications, including a 1200-page book on commercial law.

In this podcast, we talked to Prof. Markus Müller about freedom, duties and solidarity - in times of crisis and outside.

Markus Müller is Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law and Public Procedural Law at the University of Bern. He is the author of numerous publications and, together with Pierre Tschannen, edits the series "Kleine Schriften zum Recht". The series highlights legal concepts, peculiarities, and aspects from an interdisciplinary perspective. Publications by Markus Müller in the series include "Psychology in Public Procedure", "Proportionality - Thoughts on a Rubik's Cube", "Religion in the Rule of Law - From Neutrality to Tolerance" and "Administrative Law - Peculiarity and Origin".

In 2021, Switzerland celebrates 50 years of women's suffrage and voting rights. In the first episode of our podcast, we talk to Prof. Dr. Judith Wyttenbach about the legal framework and hurdles as women's voting rights were introduced.

Prof. Dr. Judith Wyttenbach is a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Bern. This year, Judith Wyttenbach, together with Prof. em. Dr. Brigitte Studer, historian at the University of Bern, published a comprehensive study on the introduction of women's voting rights on behalf of the FRI (Swiss Institute for Feminist Legal Studies and Gender Law).

In 2021, Switzerland celebrates 50 years of women's suffrage and voting rights. In the first episode of our podcast, we talk to Prof. Dr. Judith Wyttenbach about the legal framework and hurdles as women's voting rights were introduced.

Prof. Dr. Judith Wyttenbach is a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Bern. This year, Judith Wyttenbach, together with Prof. em. Dr. Brigitte Studer, historian at the University of Bern, published a comprehensive study on the introduction of women's voting rights on behalf of the FRI (Swiss Institute for Feminist Legal Studies and Gender Law).