Hunting quiet on private woodland: making private property hunt-free for ethical reasons
Private owners should be able to have their properties exempted from recreational hunting on ethical grounds. The background to this is the guarantee of property ownership, freedom of conscience and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
1. Motion
The Government Council is instructed to submit to the Grand Council a bill amending the Act on Hunting and Wildlife Protection (………) as well as the Hunting Ordinance (…………), introducing in the canton of (………) the possibility of exempting private properties from hunting on ethical grounds. The revision of the act must in particular ensure that:
- owners of private forest and other private land in the canton of (………) may, upon application, request that no hunting for recreational purposes take place on their properties, if they reject hunting on fundamental ethical convictions.
- such properties are listed under hunting law as areas with a hunting ban or as districts exempted from hunting and are integrated into hunting planning.
- the requirements and the procedure for the hunting exemption are regulated in the act, namely:
- the competence of the deciding authority
- the form of the application and evidence of the ethical grounds
- the legal nature of the decision including the possibility of appeal
- overriding public interests are safeguarded by keeping targeted interventions by the competent authority possible in narrowly defined exceptional cases, namely in the event of:
- combating epidemics and preventing animal diseases in the case of an immediate danger to humans or a considerable threat to significant property, or compelling reasons of nature conservation
- the Government Council sets out in its dispatch:
- what order of magnitude of private forest area and other private properties is likely to be affected by the possibility of the hunting exemption
- how this affects hunting planning, kill quota planning and the regulation of wildlife damage
- what financial and organisational consequences are to be expected for the canton and the municipalities.
- that the new regulation is expressly in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on compulsory hunting, and thus strengthens the guarantee of property and freedom of conscience of landowners.
In its proposal, the cantonal government takes into account the necessary transitional provisions, in particular with regard to existing hunting plans and ongoing hunting arrangements.
2. Brief justification
Today, owners of land in the canton must tolerate strangers hunting on their property for recreational purposes, even though they reject hunting on fundamental ethical grounds. Cantonal hunting law does provide for hunting sanctuaries, wildlife refuge zones and other protected areas, but it does not recognise any individual right for landowners to declare their land hunting-free on grounds of conscience.
The European Convention on Human Rights protects both property and freedom of conscience. In several judgments on compulsory hunting in contracting states, the European Court of Human Rights has held that landowners who oppose hunting on ethical grounds may not be obliged, without further consideration, to tolerate the exercise of hunting on their land. Switzerland is a contracting state to the ECHR. The Confederation and the cantons are obliged to structure their legal order in a manner compatible with human rights.
Anyone who rejects hunting on grounds of conscience must not be forced by the state to tolerate blood and bullets on their own property. Hunting-free properties are nothing radical, but a long-overdue consequence of the guarantee of property, freedom of conscience and animal welfare.
The Federal Hunting Act sets the framework for the protection and use of wild mammals and birds. The cantons, however, have considerable latitude in shaping the hunting system, hunting area, hunting planning and additional protective provisions. Within this latitude, the canton can (……) exclude land from the exercise of hunting and thereby both create new refuge areas for wild animals and strengthen the rights of landowners.
According to federal law, no canton in Switzerland is required to provide for hobby hunting. It is the cantons' right to decide whether hunting is permitted or not. If a canton decides against hunting, or even only partly against it, it may do so freely under the Federal Constitution. The canton of Geneva made this exemplary choice long ago.
With the present motion, the Cantonal Government is instructed to create a clear legal basis so that private forest owners can have their land declared hunting-free on ethical grounds. At the same time, it ensures that overriding public interests such as disease control, safety and nature conservation are safeguarded, and that the effects on hunting planning, kill quota planning and game damage regulation are set out transparently. In this way, the canton of (……) gains legal certainty and brings its hunting legislation into line with human rights requirements.