The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland has unanimously approved a revision petition concerning a romantic relationship between two of its serving judges, formally confirming that the relationship was inadmissible. Affection at the nation's highest bench is now a closed procedural matter: it occurred, it was reviewed, and it has been found improper after the fact. The liking itself was never in dispute. Only its paperwork.
The mechanism deserves note. Revision exists to correct errors in judgments. Here it was applied to conduct rather than a case, which means somewhere in that building sits a document recording nine of the country's finest legal minds convening to establish, by majority procedure, whether two colleagues had liked each other within permitted parameters. The finding: they had, and they shouldn't have. Unanimity, in matters of the heart, turns out to be achievable after all.
At 09:40, our observation post opposite the courthouse opened its tally. By 11:15, forty-one individuals had entered the building to administer justice; the tally recorded six greetings, two shared umbrellas, and zero declarations of affection, admissible or pending review. At 13:02, a courier delivered flowers to the reception desk, logged as an unregulated transfer of plant material. At 14:20, the recipient was observed smiling at them. That entry has been flagged for review.
"The process functioned exactly as intended," a senior registry official explained. "The relationship was examined against the applicable standards, and that examination has now itself been confirmed. Public confidence requires that no matter rest unexamined, including matters that were not cases." He said this the way one confirms the parking regulations.
Our tally closed at 16:50: eight hours, one confirmed inadmissible relationship, two judges whose days together have been counted, itemized, and ruled out of order, and one smile still under active consideration. "Someone had to check," a passerby named Monika Brunner told this correspondent, with the calm of a person describing rainfall. "You're free to feel whatever you like here. It simply gets ruled on afterward." She then entered the courthouse, where she is not a judge, and therefore free.
