Vegan activist takes Switzerland to Human Rights Court over prison diet | Switzerland
Switzerland was challenged at the European Court of Human Rights on the failure to provide adequate vegan diets to a prisoner and a patient in a hospital psychiatric ward, in a case that could result in veganism being interpreted as a protected characteristic under the right to freedom of conscience across geographic Europe.
The court, which is part of the Council of Europe and not the EU, officially questioned its member state this week Switzerland to respond to the two complaints that Swiss state institutions had failed to provide two applicants with a fully vegan diet during their detention and in a psychiatric ward of a hospital respectively.
The case revolves around an unnamed Swiss animal rights activist who was arrested in November 2018 over a series of break-ins and damage to slaughterhouses, butcher shops and restaurants across western Switzerland.
The then 28-year-old was remanded in Geneva’s Champ-Dollon prison for 11 months, with the cantonal judges citing a risk of recurrence because of the applicant’s “ignorance and remorse”.
A few days after his incarceration, the man complained to the prison authorities that, according to his vegan beliefs, he was not being adequately fed and had to eat side salads, rice or burger buns.
He refused additional treatment with vitamin B12 — low levels of which can lead to anemia and damage to the nervous system — until the prison provided a non-animal version. Despite this, a doctor later diagnosed the prisoner with constipation, hemorrhoids, and iron deficiency.
A written request to change the dietary regime was rejected by the prison, which said it had already taken steps to ensure the prisoner could benefit from a diet as close as possible to his beliefs.
An appeal was ruled inadmissible by the Swiss federal court in June 2020, after which the prisoner’s lawyer took the case to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which is made up of 46 judges drawn from each of the countries that make up its European have signed the Human Rights Convention, including non-EU countries such as Great Britain, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland.
A former patient at a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland joined the appeal, saying he too had been denied access to a vegan diet.
The Strasbourg court, which dismisses around 95% of the cases brought before it for review, allowed the appeal.
In its decision published this week, the court specifically asked the Swiss state to investigate whether the Geneva prison violated Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. .
The Swiss state now has three to four months to answer the ECtHR’s questions, after which the European Court of Justice is expected to clarify its position on whether the right to vegan food in prisons and hospitals is enshrined in the convention.
The case has particular significance in western Switzerland, where “antispeciesism” is a major activist movement. A judgment by the Strasbourg court would also have far-reaching consequences for the food supply in prisons and hospitals in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, which represent around 700 million people.
While the right to a vegan diet in prison for religious reasons is already enshrined in the case law of some European countries, the ECtHR ruling could expand it by defining veganism as an ethical belief system.
In a related case, an Ontario firefighter filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Court in 2019 against his employer, the Department of Natural Resources and Forestry, for an inadequate supply of vegan food while fighting a massive fire in British Columbia.