Claudio Zanetti is a Swiss lawyer and politician.
With his competent expertise, he contributes to the Center for the Investigation, Clarification,
Legal Prosecution and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity due to the Corona Measures (ZAAVV).
Claudio Zanetti was interviewed by Kla.TV the day before the almost 600 criminal charges were
filed with the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe.
Mr. Zanetti, as a Swiss citizen with a solid Swiss democracy and a righteous judiciary, you are
probably looking at Germany with bewilderment.
In view of the many German doctors who have been banned from their profession, deprived of their
liberty and lost their livelihoods because of their critical stance towards the coronavirus
measures, it is fair to say that the German justice system has gone bankrupt.
Legislation, jurisdiction and police power have obviously taken on a life of their own instead
of serving the population.
What does Switzerland do better that makes it work there?
What should we Germans learn from Switzerland, if possible?
What would you say, Mr. Zanetti?
So, as you said, it's unfortunately no longer completely solid for us either.
We also have certain signs of erosion that worry me.
That's just how it works for us.
Yes, yes.
So I won't deny that we are still much better
off than in Germany.
That in any case. Ah, yes.
We don't have the worst excesses.
But just recently there was something on Twitter about the state of the judiciary and also about the
complaint as to whether we can achieve anything, which we are now trying to do from ZAAVV.
And it actually made me sad to see how many of my German contemporaries have
lost faith in the justice system.
Yes.
And I then wrote the same thing, and then Markus Krall replied and said that the problem
was not that faith in the judiciary had been shaken, but that
the judiciary was actually no good.
He was basically right, of course, but I mean, what does that mean if people
no longer believe that they are being
served right?
So, if you have the impression, yes, they do what they want anyway;
and the person seeking justice, that's what we talk about in the legal profession, so when you go to court, you seek justice.
The right needs to be cultivated.
And if the belief is lost that this is really happening and that the law is being followed, then that is disastrous.
And that undermines the state, and that will have very, very serious consequences.
I can't say how to correct this effectively. That will take a long time.
And above all, we need a lot of sensible, comprehensible, fair decisions where people
can see: But it's not all doom and gloom.
So, a correction is possible, but at the moment it really doesn't look good.
We have now simply seen
with Corona, so what actually makes me so sick is this elimination of checks and balances
If mankind has ever achieved anything clever in the field of state policy or history, in the
art of governance, then it was actually the development of the division
of the state into the three powers - legislative, executive and judiciary - and
we have actually done very well with that.
Yes.
Suddenly we see that the authorities are acting as if there is an eternally valid truth at their
disposal and anyone who holds a different opinion is automatically wrong.
And that is very, very dangerous.
This is actually the argumentation we know from the extreme left, the Antifa.
They say: We are the anti-fascists, so
if you are against us, then you must be a fascist.
Yes, exactly,
that's the simple calculation.
Yes, but that's how it works today.
And if the intellectual discourse, the dispute, which should be cultivated, is
simply stifled, then a democracy cannot survive in the long term.
You are talking about the authorities.
I assume the media also play a major role in this.
Because it always ends up being one-sided.
And then this resignation naturally spreads.
Of course, right?
Yes.
The media have the most noble task of constantly questioning power.
But when a powerful person says something, they have to say it reflexively: Yes, why does he say that?
Does he have ulterior motives?
Can he justify what he says?
And so on.
He should have to explain it to himself.
But if something can simply be claimed and presented as gospel, then no fruitful
development can take place.
And we really have to be careful here. Otherwise we lose so much.
We are moving towards absolutism;
that this was abolished, where the king could say - I am the state - we
really don't want that anymore.
But I think Louis XIV. could say what the rules should be, the generally abstract rules.
He was able to implement them straight away.
And if someone didn't suit him, he could just as easily throw them in prison.
But you get the impression that certain people in Berlin would love to reintroduce it.
And when even the courts and everyone else goes along with it, and the media don't ask any critical questions.
I mean, for example, I can't remember Mrs. Merkel ever having
to answer a critical question.
Yes, I understand exactly what you mean. In any case.
And this resignation that you have just mentioned, which has become widespread
among the population, this lack of faith
in the justice system, I know that you are personally working against it.
Or one instrument is this direct democracy that you value there, that you are working towards.
This is a collective.
This is precisely why Switzerland does not have the form of government of a direct democracy, as
is sometimes said, but rather a semi-direct one. We also have a parliament there.
Or a referendum democracy, which is actually even better.
Because referendum actually means a popular vote in German.
And here in Switzerland, a referendum means forcing a popular vote.
So taking the referendum means collecting signatures.
50,000 signatures in 90 days, you can force the government to put it to a vote.
And that is actually a collective. This is probably why Swiss politicians are a little more relaxed.
So not every question is about death and life,
as is sometimes the case in Germany.
And you always have the opportunity - usually four times a year - to let off some steam at the ballot box.
That is also sensible, which also makes a lot of difference.
I saw that recently when I was able to show a delegation from Thuringia around our Cantonal Council in Zurich
and then the National Council in Bern, and they were very
impressed by the way we treated
each other.
For example, someone came from the far left, green and all,
and she came and was happy that I was back.
We kissed and stuff and they were all amazed. I say that's completely normal in Switzerland.
Because there are votes again, so we are together.
Then maybe three months later you have opposing opinions
again, but it's much more mixed and we don't really know these camp fights
in this way.
Very good, thank you.
So Mr. Zanetti, thank you for your comments.
A medium that you also use, which you support or a project that is close to your heart,
is the demonstration and also the filing of the 599 criminal charges
tomorrow, December 10, 2023, which
is the 75th Human Rights Day.
I think this is going to be historic.
You are involved in this, you helped initiate these criminal charges.
And the question now is: If the German judiciary, i.e. the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, does not adequately
deal with these 599 cases that will be handed over tomorrow - which would once again underline the judicial bankruptcy
in Germany - the Germans would have the opportunity, according to the Human Rights Charter, to submit
their charges to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
What chance do you think there is of obtaining a conviction of those responsible for the legal introduction
of compulsory vaccination in health authorities and among members of the armed forces
and of obtaining compensation from those responsible?
A very ambitious question.
First of all, there would have been two more reports, but two members of the
Bundestag have died in the meantime.
We don't know exactly what it was, but it could have been corona or the
vaccination, of course.
We don't do these ads for fun.
This is actually a very, very serious matter and
we simply realized that there were a lot of efforts.
The ZAAVV also wants to dedicate itself to criminal prosecution.
But we have realized that there are so many questions in this whole corona story.
And then you often come across evidence procedures or procedural histories that are very difficult.
Ralf Ludwig actually had the brilliant insight that the Bundestag
has done and decided things that it is forbidden
to do.
And he really went to the basics, namely the famous Article 1 of the Basic Law:
Human dignity is inviolable.
Yes.
We then said to ourselves that we would forget everything, these trivialities, including
the vaccine damage etc., even though this can of course be very bad for those affected.
But we have to put them on hold now.
We have said that we are concentrating on the most serious offense
- and that is this mandatory vaccination.
It doesn't matter whether it's institution-related or only
for the armed forces or something like that.
It's simply the idea that the state is telling someone what to inject under their skin.
That is not possible.
And basically, the Federal Constitutional Court decided
this question long ago.
Because it said:
The state does not have the right to weigh up human lives against each other.
120 He is not allowed to do that.
And there are several famous cases.
You will remember that after 9/11, the German Bundestag also passed a law that would have allowed the
government to shoot down an airplane that was heading towards a busy region, towards a city.
And the lawyer, Mr. Schirach, he made the famous television play, the play - I think
it was called Terror.
That's where this case takes place.
A hijacked plane heads for a soccer stadium full of people.
And now the question: Is the pilot allowed to shoot it down or not?
In his play, in the theater, the question is: Should the commander who ordered the
closure be convicted or acquitted?
It was interesting that the television audience was overwhelmingly in favor, of course, with around 90
percent - in Switzerland, I think it was only around 80 percent. Yes, he's right, you have to shoot him down.
They say: We save more lives than we destroy on the
plane.
A few politicians in the Bundestag took legal action against this legal basis,
which was adopted by the Bundestag at the time. And the Federal Court said:
Yes, such a law is not permissible, because the state must not value certain human lives more highly than others.
The state has to protect life and it must not say:
Yes, if I can save a thousand for that, then I can sacrifice ten now.
This is not possible because it is a flagrant (clear, obvious) violation of human dignity.
And that is your starting point.
Away from the individual case, from the damage or from what is really
bad, what you don't like to look at.
Yes, exactly.
The Bundestag knew back then when they decided that there would be deaths.
You have accepted this.
You said that we were rescuing more people.
But they are not entitled to make precisely this assessment.
There is also another case, the famous Gäfgen case, the kidnapping
of this young boy Jakob Metzler.
Mhm.
Or Metzer, I'm not quite sure anymore.
He was kidnapped there.
The police believed the boy was still alive.
They had caught the hostage-taker and wanted to know where the boy was.
And then the chief of police said: We have to twist his wrist and so on
until he tells us where the boy is.
It didn't come to that.
The boy was found, but unfortunately he was already dead.
This raised the question of whether the behavior of this police
chief was justified or not.
The judiciary said: No, a red
line has been crossed here, that is not acceptable.
And now there are all these people here again saying: If we were the parents of this boy,
we would have grabbed
a knife ourselves and helped him out.
But that is precisely why we have the rule of law.
We take this matter, we don't want a blood dragon.
This is an archaic legal system.
We want a system in which the state performs this task in the overall
interest and adheres to certain rules.
One of these rules is human dignity and the ban on torture that results from it.
In this case, the Federal Constitutional Court confirmed the sentence for the police
commander, although it was quite lenient.
And then it went to the European Court of Human
Rights and they also confirmed it.
They even wrote:
This red line must not be crossed even if the foundations of the state are endangered, i.e. if the survival of the state depends on it.
Unbelievable.
You can't really formulate what they did any clearer than that.
Our task now will be to initiate this discussion and say: Do you actually
know what you have done with this compulsory
vaccination?
You are tinkering with human dignity.
And the Basic Law and other legal systems - including the European Declaration of
Human Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights -
simply draw a line there. It is a categorical imperative.
And if we start to relativize, then it becomes extremely dangerous.
I want to see this politician or the federal prosecutor.
Perhaps they will come up with something.
They might say they can't be put under pressure or that we've made some kind of formal error, or they'll think of something.
But the question we are raising is so important.
And we have to insist that we say: You can't just ignore it here.
This is about the famous Article 1 of the Basic Law. And there is nothing to relativize.
Even if you could have protected 80 million people with the vaccine, or 100 million or 500 million,
there would still be this red line.
It is very interesting.
You can't say: we save a few and sacrifice a few in return.
I mean, we're like that again, when they threw virgins to the
dragons in the Middle Ages.
That is simply not possible.
It is a development in the history of ideas that we simply set limits to the state.
And human dignity also sets limits for the state, which it must not exceed.
Limits that he has set himself.
Yes ... always be careful,
the state doesn't have that much good.
The state must always be forced to respect the borders.
But it's also in the second sentence:
The authorities, i.e. the state and all state bodies, are obliged to respect this dignity.
Because that is interesting.
Paragraph 2 is never mentioned.
Of course, this is actually limited to state institutions.
And that's exactly what they don't care about.
And that is highly dangerous.
And now we simply want to force this discussion on you.
You must now take a stand:
Why do you think you are entitled to relativize or tinker
with Article 1 of the Basic Law?
Now, if you find any reason to say: No, we're not interested in that, we won't go
into it. - which we unfortunately have to reckon with - the road to The Hague is open.
And we are also in the process of somehow finding states to support us in this, because
then you have to get involved.
And of course there are also African states, for example, that are interested in joining in, because
they too are getting fed up with the fact that only black Africans are
ever put on trial in The Hague.
They also say: Yes, there are a few gangsters in the West who deserve it.
And let's take a look.
So the federal prosecutor is actually in an awkward position in that he has to decide:
Do we want to clarify the matter internally, so to speak, and say, yes, there really
is a need for action, we need to work through this;
We will also have to lock up the guilty parties or prosecute them - or do you want
to give yourself the embarrassment of having the whole thing dealt with internationally under
the supervision of the world public?
Yes, very interesting.
But the bottom line is that you are turning the tables and these rules that the state has created
or where it has said, in highly legal rulings, that you must not, in order to protect
even one or even one million people, introduce anything that endangers just one person.
I find it very interesting that you are turning this around and making the attack there.
In other words, you are already giving it a high chance,
I'm talking about logical argumentation, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
In terms of intellectual reasoning, the case is clear to me.
You'll have to come up with something to explain it.
You will perhaps say with the usual flippancy, yes, yes, we have no
idea about jurisprudence and so on.
But right there! - I mean, certain provisions in the law are worded so
simply that everyone understands.
- In particular, there is another one that I like: there is no censorship.
Well, I think it couldn't be easier to formulate a legal provision.
But I can see how many German politicians have great difficulty understanding this.
I mean, Ms. Nancy Faeser, she doesn't care what it says.
She says: Yes, we are only censoring for your protection.
I mean, when I watch Kla.TV - there's all these weird faggots and so on, we have
to protect the population from them.
So, of course we mean well with you.
And - no, the
constitution is absolutely clear
- it's not happening!
And these defensive rights oblige the state to tolerate precisely that which
goes completely against the grain.
If he only approves of what he himself thinks is good, that is not freedom.
No.
No, he has to find that ... Sounds logical.
...where they get angry against it and say, yes, they have the right; - or the famous Voltaire saying:
Even if I condemn what you say, I want to give my life for it and fight so that you can say it.
That is the principle of the Freedom Party.
A very nice quote;
yes. - Mr. Zanetti, thank you very much for your comments.
What will happen to the 599 charges if the International Criminal Court
proves not to be independent, i.e.
if this jurisdiction does not adequately address these
crimes against humanity?
Because there has to be a way, at some point and somehow, to prevent such crimes
from continuing in the future.
You are addressing another major issue: the independence of the judiciary.
In Switzerland, too, we are always arguing about how best to achieve this.
And such an international body is of course never completely independent.
But it is an attempt to be able to punish even serious crimes
in international law.
I mean, when we think of the Nuremberg Trial or after the horrors of the Second World War
- of course it was a victor's justice, of course it is tainted with this flaw - but
it was a first attempt to create justice, to establish rules, crimes against humanity
- or as we now say here: humanity - or war crimes and so on.
Despite everything, this is a quantum leap in human history.
That has to be said,
and standards were set for later cases as well.
Now an international tribunal has been set up and the big countries are saying:
Yes, that's very good, but it doesn't count for us.
The Americans say that if one of our soldiers is put on trial there, the
president or the country is obliged to use military force to get him out.
And you can imagine how independent such a court is.
I don't think the Russians are involved either, but now there are proceedings against Putin.
Of course, there are a lot of things that are politically motivated.
And then on the other side we have the Africans, as already mentioned, who say :
Why is it always just us and not the others?
Each country then chooses whether or not to follow this judgment.
Yes, exactly. This is more than just teething troubles.
These are of course problems that such an international authority simply has.
The question is whether we are forced to simply live with it and make the best of it or whether
we can somehow try to improve it step by step.
I think that would be very desirable, but of course it is also important
that this is perceived as fair by a broad global public.
Of course, it takes a lot of effort; a lot has to be right.
Politicians in the federal states also need to take a step back.
But as we can see, the trend at the moment is going in the opposite direction.
The judiciary is almost degenerating into an instrument of those in power.
A highly problematic
development, isn't it?
I mean, even ... I've seen it in Germany, where the interior minister uses the secret service against unpopular civil servants.
- We see how an absolutely honorable personality like Hans-Georg Maaßen
is punished because he simply allowed himself to have an opinion.
These are ... - Or even entire parties, right?
I mean, when a party is as dominant as the AfD is now, you can't even think about banning it in a democracy.
I mean, Article 20 of your Basic Law says so: All state power emanates from the people.
In other words, it is the people who elect the government, not the other way around ...
... Yes, that's how it should be.
Yes, but I think there is a lack of clarity about such trivial things today.
Or there is a discussion: 'yes, can we make democracy work from the top down?
' ... No, you have to get democracy.
Those in power have no power over us other than that which we grant them.
And you have to keep fighting for that.
So you don't get democracy for free,
you don't get freedom for free.
When we say 75 years of human rights. That's all well and good.
But this is actually just the UN catalog that we said 75 years ago, when we celebrated
the anniversary on December 10.
But the understanding that these rights are birthrights that we are entitled to because we are
human! We need to get that back into people's heads!
And we saw with Corona, the politicians were acting out...
Sometimes I had to think about how I used to play with the Märklin
train set as a little boy, where I could make the trains go
faster or slower with a Transformer,
and how they're treating our civil liberties today.
They throw us a piece and say: 'Yes, we'll end it', they set a date for when the constitution will apply again.
A constitution or a basic law must be the rock in the surf and it is precisely
in stormy times that it must apply.
It cannot depend on politics when the constitution applies.
Such questions are not discussed at all.
I find that extremely dangerous.
Karl Schmitt said that sovereignty belongs to those who have a state of emergency at their disposal.
And we have now seen that this is obviously the administration and the government.
They benefit from the state of emergency and can therefore declare it.
And this total corruption of the law goes even further.
I mean, when I now see in Germany how a government is seriously seeking a state of emergency and wants to
declare a state of emergency in order to adopt an unconstitutional budget, then we are
not far from arbitrariness, because that is
arbitrariness.
Of course, you
can see it in the dissatisfaction of the people, the poll
numbers are in the basement like never before,
but we have that, if I understand you correctly...
Nothing happens, nothing happens.
That's the crazy thing,
it needs this counter-publicity.
Or perhaps we already agree that this is not possible.
But where are the big media outlets that simply ask a few questions?
I mean, we have people who are now ... including the Federal Chancellor, I really don't want to offend
these people so much, it's not my place as a Swiss citizen, but there are serious
allegations of corruption, for example, with this cum-ex story.
And he doesn't remember.
He simply says: I can't remember and that clears the matter up.
And everyone swallows it.
Yes, but it would be more correct to say that if he cannot remember such things, then perhaps he is not the right person for the Federal Chancellery.
You might have to ask someone else.
He should think about it.
Yes. We are happy to do so.
After all, he has a vice president and perhaps the vice president is what is preventing people
from deposing him.
But Mr. Zanetti, to get to the solution, if we are now actually dealing with
abuse of power globally and also nationally everywhere, obviously.
All the examples you have just listed are quite clearly an abuse of power and a complete lack of discourse.
In other words, that would be a starting point, as I understand it, to really
get people to think freely again. Did I understand you correctly?
That you get them to discuss. That opinions are allowed again.
A culture of debate, that's important and we have to stop...
There is no opinion that can be excluded from the outset as morally reprehensible. That
is not possible.
You have to allow it.
You can also refute an opinion.
But if we lose this culture, then our democracy will go down the drain.
We simply have to see that.
And we just had such a thing.
I mean, abusing the judiciary as an instrument of power... There should be an outcry.
I mean, when I see now that a Michael Ballweg spent nine months in prison and
it's not even enough for an indictment.
And these Reichsbürger, I don't know them. They are half crazy.
But you can still be that in our country. In a free country, you are allowed to be half crazy.
I don't know what they did exactly.
But they've been in prison for a year now. And no lawsuit on the table yet.
I mean, Habeas Corpus Acte is already a few hundred years old.
And we are obviously thrown back again in terms of intellectual history, because the state
can simply take every right for itself.
If they are criminals, they should be punished and sentenced.
I have nothing against that at all.
Yes, but then prove it to them.
But these people,... they also make fun of you, with the walker coup and so on.
And that old woman, the way she got out of the car and so on.
That is now the greatest danger threatening Germany, coming from these
people. This is now shaking the Republic.
So faith in the republic is not far off.
Yes, that's probably right.
Very nicely summarized.
Mr. Zanetti, the bottom line is that we need an open discourse.
We need a culture of debate. I understood you correctly.
And addressed to the audience: a culture of dispute that is not simply transferred
to the lawyers and jurists, but who argue on a legal level in their field.
And we in the population must also learn to discuss things again.
I understood you correctly, didn't I? That's the good old checks and balances
[System for maintaining the separation of powers]. Precisely from the separation of powers.
The powers are not only separated. There is also the inhibition of powers.
So they have to parade each other from time to time.
That is the task!
But back to Corona.
I mean, the most important decision-making body was this famous switch, these Zoom
conferences that they had, the ministerial conferences with the prime ministers.
In other words, a body that is not provided for anywhere in the Basic Law.
They decided on the state of emergency.
And then they themselves are the sovereign, to paraphrase Karl Schmitt.
That can't be right!
No, no, no.
Absolutely not.
Absolutely disgraceful.
Yes. Very good.
We are very, very happy to take your suggestions on board.
Give them out to the audience.
We are also very grateful for every lawyer who is fighting this battle.
At levels where we just can't, yes, I wouldn't make any progress at all.
That's not my world.
And I am very grateful that there are people like you who are committed to this.
But I have understood that I can do my part to contribute to this culture
of debate, to discuss it with those around me and to pass it on.
And I'm very excited to see how it turns out tomorrow.
We are keeping our fingers crossed.
I really put a lot of energy and strength into this event.
Thank you, Mr. Zanetti.