How the canton of Bern governs freedom of conscience past the hunt

There is one question that is almost never asked in the Swiss hunting debate – and it is not, at first glance, about animal welfare at all.

It is this: may a person be forced to tolerate on their own property a practice that runs counter to their deepest ethical convictions?

When it comes to hobby hunting, the answer in almost every canton is, to this day: yes.

The Bernese cantonal government recently reaffirmed this stance. In its reply to a parliamentary interpellation on declaring private land free of hunting, it stated that the current system safeguards fundamental rights. It rejected any statutory arrangement that would allow landowners to prohibit hobby hunting on their land on grounds of conscience.

The decision is revealing. Not primarily because of what it says, but because of what it leaves out.

The heart of the conflict: property and conscience

The cantonal government bases its rejection largely on a legal finding: the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on compulsory hunting rests on the protection of property under Art. 1 of the First Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. Switzerland has indeed signed this protocol, but never ratified it.

Formally, that is correct. Together with Monaco, Switzerland is one of the few member states of the Council of Europe in which the First Additional Protocol to the ECHR is not in force.

Yet that does not resolve the conflict. It concerns both property and conscience.

The leading Strasbourg rulings to date assessed compulsory hunting primarily on the basis of the protection of property. For Switzerland, another question therefore moves to the fore, one that has not yet been conclusively answered: may the state oblige people to tolerate on their own land a practice that contradicts their firmly held ethical convictions?

Freedom of belief and conscience enjoys twofold protection in Switzerland: through Art. 15 of the Federal Constitution and through Art. 9 ECHR. Anyone who rejects hunting out of a firm, serious and ethically grounded conviction can in principle invoke this protection.

That does not mean that every personal moral stance automatically overrides state law. It does mean, however, that the state may not simply disregard such a conviction. Insofar as the enforced toleration of hunting is to be classified as an interference with freedom of conscience, this interference would have to rest on a statutory basis, serve a legitimate public interest and be proportionate.

In its response, the cantonal government itself acknowledges that the ethical rejection of hunting may fall within the scope of protection of freedom of conscience. Precisely for that reason, the reference to the unratified property protocol is not sufficient.

What is remarkable is what Bern concedes at this point while simultaneously brushing it aside: whether the obligation to tolerate hunting on one's own land constitutes a permissible interference with freedom of conscience was not examined by the ECtHR at all, because a violation of the right to property had already been established.

That is correct – but it does not follow that freedom of conscience plays no role.

The ECtHR has not decided Art. 9 ECHR separately in the leading cases to date, because the established violation of property rights was sufficient for the judgment. The independent question of what requirements arise from freedom of conscience with regard to an enforced toleration of hunting therefore remains open for a Swiss case.

More on the constitutional and human rights context in the dossier Hunting and human rights.

What «not directly binding» really means

The cantonal government writes that the case law of the ECtHR is «not directly binding» for Switzerland. That too is correct in the narrow sense: a judgment against France, Luxembourg or Germany is not an automatic precedent for an individual Swiss case.

But «not directly binding» does not mean «without consequences».

Art. 9 ECHR is convention law that is binding on Switzerland and can be invoked by individuals. Cantons may not apply law that is incompatible with the ECHR. An affected landowner could therefore exhaust the cantonal legal channels and take the question all the way to the Federal Supreme Court. Once domestic remedies have been exhausted, an application to the ECtHR would be possible.

The judgments Chassagnou and Others v. France of 1999, Schneider v. Luxembourg of 2007 and Herrmann v. Germany of 2012 show that landowners who reject hunting on ethical grounds were protected from disproportionate forced hunting on their land. In these cases the ECtHR found violations of the protection of property under Art. 1 of the First Additional Protocol. For Switzerland, however, since that protocol has not been ratified, it would have to be clarified independently what duties of protection arise from Art. 9 ECHR.

Switzerland is therefore not a special case that could exempt itself from a European human rights development. Rather, it is a laggard. The only open question is whether the cantons will create a legal basis on their own initiative or only act after lengthy court proceedings.

Germany and Italy show the way

The Bern cantonal government argues that a system of hunting-free areas would be practically almost impossible to implement. The Bern forest is spread across around 36’000 owners. A procedure for recording and monitoring individual applications would create a barely manageable administrative burden.

This argument is refuted by the practice of other states.

Germany took the legislative route. Following the judgment in Herrmann v. Germany, the legislator introduced a procedure for ethical exemption with § 6a of the Federal Hunting Act. Natural persons may apply for hunting to be suspended on their land if they can credibly demonstrate that they reject hunting on ethical grounds. The exemption is ordered by the competent authority and does not apply without limits.

In particular, it does not mean that no state wildlife management or hazard prevention whatsoever would be possible on a given area. The authority may order limited hunting where this is necessary, for instance to prevent excessive game damage, in the event of animal epidemics, for conservation or animal welfare reasons, for traffic safety or to avert other significant dangers.

Germany thus demonstrates that freedom of conscience and wildlife management can be reconciled in law. An ethical exemption does not create a lawless space, but a controlled balance between individual fundamental rights and demonstrably necessary public interests.

Italy shows a second route: interpreting existing hunting law in conformity with fundamental rights through the courts.

The Administrative Court of the Abruzzo Region, Pescara branch, ruled in judgment No. 254/2026 of 11 May 2026 that ethical grounds can be a legitimate argument for excluding hunting on one's own property. An authority may not reject such an application out of hand. Rather, it must objectively justify why that specific area would be indispensable for the objectives of the regional wildlife and hunting plan.

The court did not create an entirely new body of hunting law. It interpreted existing law in the light of fundamental rights and the Strasbourg case law. Ethical and moral grounds may not be dismissed as irrelevant from the outset when an application is made to exclude an area.

The case is documented in the article Italy: court permits hunting ban on one's own land on ethical grounds.

To this day, Switzerland has no comparable, generally accessible regulation. It has neither created a statutory procedure along German lines, nor has the question of conscience yet been clarified through the courts.

Poland: hunting-free properties by declaration

Poland shows that even a nationwide hunting system can be changed in law.

Following a ruling by the Polish Constitutional Court in 2014, the way private land was divided into hunting districts at that time was fundamentally called into question. The court objected that landowners had too few options to take action against hunting on their land. The Polish debate and case law also referred to the Strasbourg judgments on compulsory hunting.

Since a reform in 2018, natural persons have been able to declare to the competent local authorities that hunting may not take place on their land. The property does remain part of the hunting district. It may be entered, for example, for a necessary follow-up search. However, hunting and shooting on the area are in principle prohibited.

Poland thus chose a different model from Germany. Whereas Germany provides for an administrative procedure requiring ethical grounds to be credibly demonstrated, Poland has a comparatively low-threshold option of simply making a declaration. This model, too, has its limits, not least because legal entities such as animal welfare or nature conservation organisations cannot assert the same rights. The principle is nonetheless clear: landowners do not have to tolerate hunting on their land without exception.

More on this in the article Poland: more and more hunting-free properties.

The 100-metre rule protects houses, not consciences

As evidence of protection that already exists, the Bern cantonal government points to the hunting ban within a radius of 100 metres around permanently inhabited buildings.

This reference misses the heart of the matter.

The rule is a local safety provision. It protects residents and buildings from certain dangers arising from hunting. It does not, however, give a landowner any individual right to prohibit hunting on their land on ethical grounds.

On top of that, the 100-metre rule does not apply absolutely. It lapses if woodland, forest-like tree cover or a sight-obstructing hedge lies between the building and the person entitled to hunt. For certain animal species, hunting may even be permitted within the 100-metre boundary with the consent of the residents.

Under the hunting law currently in force, a sign reading «Hunting prohibited» gives a landowner in the canton of Bern no individual, enforceable right to keep hunting off their own property on grounds of conscience.

This is precisely where the difference lies compared with proceedings in Germany, Italy or Poland: there, the authorities and courts must at least examine, in legal terms, an individual's ethical objection to hunting. Bern, by contrast, points to a protection of buildings that does not protect the conscience of the person concerned.

A look at Geneva

The cantonal government defends the «tried-and-tested militia system» with the argument that a professional solution would be more expensive and would bring no visible added benefit.

The canton of Geneva shows that it can be done differently.

Following a popular vote, Geneva introduced a general ban on hunting mammals and birds in 1974. Since then, private hunting has no longer been organised via hunting licences. Tasks such as wildlife monitoring, damage prevention, supervision of protected areas and – where necessary – targeted interventions are carried out by state specialists.

The responsible cantonal wildlife inspector publicly described this model as cost-effective. The cantonal director of biodiversity explained that a hunting ban could be one means of promoting biodiversity. Whether, and under what conditions, the Geneva model could be transferred to other cantons would have to be examined by Bern on the basis of its own data on land area, personnel and wild animals.

For the central question here, however, one simple finding suffices: a Swiss canton can abolish private hobby hunting and organise wildlife-related tasks through state specialists.

More on this in the Tages-Anzeiger and in the dossier Geneva and the hunting ban.

What is really at stake

The Bern decision does not answer the human rights question; it merely shifts it.

The fact that the property protection of the 1st Additional Protocol does not apply in Switzerland does not release the canton from its duty to give serious consideration to freedom of conscience under Art. 9 ECHR.

The decisive question is not whether every single plot of land can be withdrawn from hunting. It is whether the state must create a proportionate procedure for people with a firmly held ethical objection to hunting – one that protects freedom of conscience while at the same time taking into account concretely substantiated interests of wildlife protection, nature conservation, disease control and public safety.

Germany shows how such a balance can be organised in law. Italy shows that courts can take ethical grounds seriously when interpreting existing hunting law. France and Luxembourg demonstrate that the compulsory hunting of land owners who reject it on ethical grounds did not stand up before the ECtHR. Poland shows that even a nationwide hunting system can be corrected by constitutional law and legislation in favour of private land owners.

Bern can continue to leave this question open. That does not mean it has been settled.