Grisons' judiciary and politics under pressure: patterns of cover-up and cronyism

Several mutually independent cases in recent years have triggered criticism in Grisons of the public prosecutor's office, the courts and the government. The criticism concerns lengthy proceedings, a closeness between the authorities and the accused, as well as transparency perceived as inadequate. The hobby-hunting-critical reporting of wildbeimwild.com is also directly affected by such proceedings.

This article puts the individual cases into context. In doing so, we deliberately distinguish between the documented facts and our assessment as a hunting-critical editorial team. One recurring feature stands out: in several of these cases it was a higher authority, not least the Federal Supreme Court, that corrected cantonal decisions.

Penal order against wildbeimwild.com

The facts. In February 2024, a Grisons hobby hunter filed a criminal complaint against wildbeimwild.com for alleged defamation. The trigger was a symbolic image that he himself had publicly published 9 years earlier. After an initial hearing in May 2024 in Roveredo, the proceedings lay dormant for over a year. The person concerned was unable to travel to a second hearing scheduled for the spring of 2025 for health reasons and provided evidence of this with a medical certificate confirming a Weber B fracture. Nevertheless, on 3 July 2025, public prosecutor Ursin Brunett issued a summary penalty order. After the objection, the person was once again summoned to a hearing in Chur, even though they had repeatedly documented their accident-related inability to travel with medical certificates. Because they did not appear at the hearing on 18 September 2025, the authority interpreted this, based on Article 355 of the Criminal Procedure Code, as a withdrawal of the objection and declared the summary penalty order legally binding. The person was ordered to pay the procedural costs of 1,245 francs.

The context. From the point of view of wildbeimwild.com, it is troubling that the medically documented inability to travel played no role in the further proceedings and is not mentioned in the discontinuation order. This led to a conviction without the person concerned ever being able to assert their impediment in court, even though the underlying publication was, according to their account, long since time-barred. Whether this procedure was legally correct is more than questionable.

A related case documented by the research portal Inside Justiz met with comparable criticism. According to this, Ursin Brunett sentenced a presumed writer of a letter to the editor to over 10,000 francs. According to the report, the mobile number cited by the St. Gallen cyber investigation could not, according to information from Swisscom, be linked to the IP address of the comment; the accused was nonetheless convicted. This account comes from Inside Justiz; the ruling itself is not available to wildbeimwild.com.

Proceedings against a former administrative judge

The facts of the case. A former administrative judge from Chur was convicted at first instance of rape, sexual harassment and threatening behaviour and sentenced to 23 months' suspended imprisonment, well below the public prosecutor's request. According to media reports, the preliminary investigation was led by public prosecutor Corina Collenberg, who is said to have been on first-name terms with the accused; his ex-partner reportedly worked at the same authority. It was further reported that forensic examinations were not carried out and that witnesses were only questioned around two years after the offence. At the Higher Court, the panel for the appeal hearing consisted in part of the accused's former colleagues, and the public was excluded from the hearing.

The assessment. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, excluding the public must be proportionate and justified on a case-by-case basis. From the perspective of wildbeimwild.com, the combination of personal closeness in the preliminary investigation, belatedly scheduled questioning and a panel composed partly of former colleagues raises questions about institutional distance. We also view critically the fact that the public prosecutor subsequently converted its own appeal into a cross-appeal, thereby making itself dependent on the conduct of the accused. This is our assessment of the publicly reported course of the proceedings, not an accusation of a criminal act against the officials involved.

Responsibility at the top

The facts. Ultimate responsibility for both of the aforementioned proceedings lies with Claudio Riedi, First Public Prosecutor of the Canton of Grisons since 2016. Both Ursin Brunett and Corina Collenberg report to him. As First Public Prosecutor, Riedi sets the guidelines for criminal prosecution. In the defamation proceedings against wildbeimwild.com, three public prosecutors were involved: First Public Prosecutor Claudio Riedi, Senior Public Prosecutor Maurus Eckert and the case-handling Ursin Brunett.

The assessment. Regardless of who handles the individual case, the leadership of the authority bears the structural responsibility for how sensitive proceedings are dealt with. That three public prosecutors signed off on proceedings which, from the editorial team's point of view, could have been discontinued early due to the statute of limitations, we regard as a remarkable expenditure of personnel. That the authority acts with restraint on hobby hunting matters is not a new impression from the perspective of wildbeimwild.com: as early as 2018, the public prosecutor informed the IG Wild beim Wild that it saw no need for action, even though, from the complainants' point of view, serious failures within the Office for Hunting and Fishing were at issue. We documented this restraint in the article «Public prosecutor of Grisons kowtows».Public prosecutor of Grisons kowtows».

An authority that rarely provides information on its own initiative

The facts of the matter. According to the experiences of wildbeimwild.com, the public prosecutor of Grisons hardly ever informs complainants on its own initiative, neither about the receipt of a criminal complaint nor about its outcome. In the defamation proceedings against our own person, a prompt letter pointing out the inability to travel for health reasons went without any acknowledgement of receipt; on the day of the summons, the secretariat was unable to confirm by telephone whether the letter had been received, and only after a personal call from the public prosecutor did written confirmation arrive a day later. In another case, the public prosecutor informed the IG Wild beim Wild on 27 August 2025 that it would not take up its complaint against a hobby hunter from Grisons, without serving the reasoned decision not to proceed. wildbeimwild.com thereby criticised a violation of the right to be heard under Article 29 paragraph 2 of the Federal Constitution. This criticism was unsuccessful: the mere notification to the complainant, without service of the reasoned decision, is considered to be in accordance with the law. When the Cantonal High Court of Grisons was called upon on 20 November 2025, it did not enter into the appeal, because a mere complainant is not entitled to lodge an appeal.

The assessment. Legally, the brief notification to complainants may be permissible. From the perspective of wildbeimwild.com, however, it results in a complaining organisation effectively not learning the reasons for a decision not to proceed, and being scarcely able to challenge it effectively. What other cantons handle as a self-evident part of their procedural communication thus becomes an obligation on the complainants to obtain. Telling, in our view, is an episode that wildbeimwild.com experienced itself: in response to a request to be sent a decision, First Public Prosecutor Claudio Riedi replied over the telephone, in essence, that one does not simply put decisions on just anyone's fax machine — and this towards the very party that had triggered the proceedings in the first place with its complaint. Striking is the double standard: the same trophy photo whose publication by the hobby hunter the authority did not deem worthy of an investigation led, in a critical context and used by wildbeimwild.com, to criminal proceedings against the complaining person. How consistently prosecution is pursued elsewhere is illustrated by a series of cases outside the Grisons, which we have documented in the article «Swiss hobby hunters keep the justice system busy»; the details on the decision not to proceed we describe in the article «Swiss hobby hunters keep the justice system busy» documented; the details on the decision not to proceed we describe in the article «When hunting photos become the blind spot of the justice system in the Grisons».

The construction cartel: politics, industry and hobby hunting

The facts. In the biggest price-fixing scandal in recent Swiss construction history, the Competition Commission fined seven firms around 7.5 million francs, after construction companies in the Lower Engadine had colluded on numerous public tenders in structural and civil engineering over the years. Two former BDP politicians and hobby hunters also became caught up in the affair: Andreas Felix, managing director of the Grisons Master Builders' Association, resigned as party president and cantonal government candidate following the allegations; Jon Domenic Parolini, as former municipal president of Scuol, is said, according to media reports, to have known of the arrangements. The whistleblower Adam Quadroni was, by his own account, initially not heard by the cantonal authorities; the case was largely investigated by the Competition Commission in Bern.

The assessment. For wildbeimwild.com, the case shows how closely authorities, the construction industry, politics and hobby hunting can be intertwined within the same department for construction, transport and forestry, whose remit also includes hunting matters. We have set out the parallels in the article «Grisons: Hobby hunters in the construction cartel quagmire» set out.

The Cavigelli file: politics as part of the pattern

The facts. When in 2013 the popular initiative to abolish the special hunt was submitted with over 10,000 signatures, the then cantonal councillor and building director Mario Cavigelli (Mitte party) initially did not present to the Grand Council a letter from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), in which the office had assessed the initiative as compliant with federal law. Only during the parliamentary debate did he concede that the letter should have been presented. IG Wild beim Wild filed a criminal complaint; the initiators had to carry the case at their own expense all the way to the Federal Supreme Court before it could be put to a vote. Cavigelli headed the very Department of Building, Transport and Forestry which also had jurisdiction over hunting and fishing.

The assessment. From the perspective of wildbeimwild.com, this episode is exemplary of a way of dealing with parliament that we regard as lacking transparency. We describe the background in the article «Mario Cavigelli should be held liable for his lies» and in the «Mario Cavigelli file: politician and beneficiary».

How rocky the legal path against the Grisons authorities can be is shown by the second cantonal popular initiative of the Wildtierschutz Schweiz association, «For a nature-friendly and ethical hunt». Before the Grisons Administrative Court, the association won a partial victory in 2018: the court deemed the protection of mother animals and the general winter rest for red deer permissible, but rejected the demand for a parity-based composition of the Office for Hunting and Fishing. The association took this point further, as we documented in the article «Wildtierschutz Schweiz association wins a partial victory in court» documented. Before the Federal Supreme Court, the association was then proven right: the demand for parity-based representation of animal welfare advocates, hobby hunters and non-hunters does not violate superordinate law. It was, as we noted at the time, «the second instance to correct Grisons politics in the context of the hunting initiative».

A court case over a villa in Samedan

The facts. «Blick» recently reported on another case: a doctor lost 1.3 million francs when buying a house in Samedan because a municipality had for years failed to enter a primary-residence obligation into the land register. A notary who was also the municipal president is said to have known about it. According to the report, two professors of criminal law affirmed the elements of fraud in private expert opinions. According to this account, the responsible authority let the case lie until the statute of limitations expired; a legal opinion from the University of Zurich later concluded that an investigating public prosecutor had made himself guilty of granting an advantage through inaction. Only the Federal Supreme Court, according to the report, repeatedly forced the authorities to act.

The assessment. The assessments mentioned stem from the cited expert opinions and the reporting of «Blick»; the case files are not available to wildbeimwild.com. For us, the case nevertheless fits into a picture in which cantonal bodies only take action under pressure from a higher instance.

Oversight by the Justice Commission

The facts. Oversight of judges and public prosecutors in the Grisons lies with the cantonal Justice Commission. Its decisions are hardly ever communicated publicly.

The assessment. In political circles the commission is therefore critically referred to as a «dark chamber». From the point of view of wildbeimwild.com, this lack of transparency contributes to the fact that criticism of individual proceedings remains difficult to verify. We present this assessment as an opinion; it is based on the public debate, not on proof of concrete misconduct by the commission.

A recurring pattern

The cases described differ greatly in content: a defamation proceeding against an animal welfare medium, a criminal proceeding against a former administrative judge, a loss running into the millions in connection with a notary's office, a construction cartel and a BAFU assessment initially withheld from parliament. What connects them from the point of view of wildbeimwild.com is the criticism of the same structures: lengthy proceedings, a perceived lack of transparency and a personal closeness between authorities and those affected.

Also striking is a second feature: in several cases it was a higher authority that corrected cantonal decisions, be it the Federal Supreme Court in the hunting initiative and the villa case, the Competition Commission in the construction cartel, or the FOEN in the special hunt. This recurring pattern points to an arrogance among cantonal officials that is only reined in by higher authorities.

wildbeimwild.com will continue to critically follow developments in Grisons, particularly where they concern how the judiciary and politics deal with hobby hunting.

More on the subject in the dossier «Grisons' Justice in a Dubious Light» as well as in the dossier «Criticism and Facts on Hobby Hunting».