Word: courtelis
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...Justice Department subpoenaed bank documents, and could have threatened to have a U.S. court slap a contempt citation and a scorching daily fine on UBS until it turned the documents over. (See the worst business deals...
...Swiss voters will go to the polls March 7 to decide whether each of the country's 26 cantons (similar to states) should be obligated to appoint a special attorney to represent pets and farm animals in court in cases of alleged abuse. The initiative is just one of many put before the electorate every year in Switzerland's unique brand of direct democracy, in which anyone can bring an issue up for a vote provided he or she has enough signatures on a petition. While some may grumble that the initiatives are, at times, trivial - animal lawyers being...
...instance, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) sponsored an initiative to ban the building of minarets on mosques - a proposal opponents decried as anti-Muslim and hateful. The ban was approved by more than 57% of voters, but there's been talk among Muslim groups about challenging it in court. The Swiss parliament can declare an initiative invalid only if it violates international law. This last happened in 1996, when legislators halted an SVP initiative calling for the deportation of asylum seekers to their countries of origin. (See TIME's photo-essay "Abused No More: Rehabilitated Attack Dogs...
They may not be meowing, barking or mooing their way through depositions anytime soon, but if Switzerland's animal-rights activists get their way, domestic creatures may be given the constitutional right to be represented by (human) lawyers in court...
...everyone would consider the animal-lawyer initiative frivolous, however. Proponents say the current laws dealing with animal abuse aren't strong enough to secure convictions against those suspected of cruelty, so having a court-appointed lawyer act on the behalf of animals makes a lot of (horse) sense. "Humans accused of animal cruelty can hire a lawyer or get one assigned, but animals cannot," Antoine Goetschel, an animal-rights advocate and lawyer, told London's Sunday Times. "Which is where I come in." (Read "Identity Crisis for the Swiss...