VIENNA, April 20 ― A European Court of Human Rights ruling last week that Switzerland has failed to protect its people from climate change is hard to reconcile with direct democracy, the Swiss environment minister said in a newspaper interview, appearing to play it down.
The April 9 ruling cannot be appealed and the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, which represented the government before the court, said it must be implemented. It said it would analyse the ruling to determine the measures the country needed to take. Roesti belongs to the right-wing Swiss People's Party , which has the most seats in the lower house of parliament. After the court ruling the SVP said Switzerland should withdraw from the Council of Europe, calling the ECHR judges “puppets for activists”.“I do not think we should grant the ruling even more attention by taking such a step. But I do ask myself how these two things can be reconciled: a population that decides by direct democracy and an international court,” he said.