Anina Ritscher from Reflekt wins the Prix Transparence 2024
Through extensive lobbying, the shipping company MSC attempted to influence a draft bill to introduce a tonnage tax—and thereby secure a tax break for the Swiss shipping industry. For exposing this attempt to influence the administration, Anina Ritscher of Reflekt is being awarded the 2024 Prix Transparence.
Anina Ritscher challenged the federal law on public access to correspondence between the administration and the shipping company. The journalist met with resistance from the Department of Finance - only after an arbitration hearing were the documents, heavily redacted, made accessible. The documents confirmed the original suspicion: MSC was able to exert direct influence on legislation together with the industry association.
After the research was published, the draft law, which the shipping industry had lobbied for without restraint, was discussed in parliament, where the planned tonnage tax was ultimately scuppered. "When an international corporation invites itself to the Federal Council and pre-formulates legal texts, it takes tenacious journalists to keep an eye on the powerful," says jury member Mattias Greuter.
Publicity law.ch is awarding the Prix Transparence for the seventh time. The prize is awarded to media professionals who apply a public access law in a targeted and effective manner. "With the federal and cantonal public access laws, media professionals uncover weaknesses, provide fact-based research and thus strengthen democratic discourse - this is more important than ever," says Martin Stoll, Managing Director of the association Öffentlichkeitsgesetz.ch.
Regional prize goes to Geneva
For the third time, the prize was also awarded for the best journalistic achievement implemented with cantonal publicity laws. This year, the Prix Transparence Regio goes to the former Le-Temps-journalist David Haeberli in Geneva.
His research uncovered how the board of the Geneva pension fund secretly increased the restructuring costs of the pension fund from CHF 4.4 billion to CHF 6 billion - behind the backs of the population and politicians. This is documented by the minutes of a board meeting, which David Haeberli obtained after a long legal battle that went all the way to the Federal Supreme Court.
Research on secret service and environmental policy honored
2nd place in the national Prix Transparence went to Leo Eiholzer from the NZZ on Sunday with his research on the interference with the work of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS). Cornelia Eisenach and Priscilla Imboden of Republic for their research into the influence of the Federal Office for the Environment on a critical report.
Regio research on expenses and legacy assets
2nd place in the Prix Transparence Regio goes to Sven Altermatt and Lucien Fluri from the Solothurn newspaper about grievances in the Thal-Gäu social region. 3rd place in the Prix Transparence Regio goes to Camille Lanci from RTS and Marc Guéniat from Le Temps for their research on areas contaminated with persistent persistent organic compounds (PFAS).
New record for searches with the Freedom of Information Act
Overall has Publicity law.ch 179 contributions from 52 editorial offices from the press, radio and TV that were realized in 2024 with the help of a publicity law were evaluated - a new record. Ten of these were nominated for the Prix Transparence 2024 and five for the Prix Transparence Regio 2024. An expert jury selected the winners.
The association Öffentlichkeitsgesetz.ch is supported by media professionals in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. It is committed to good implementation of the principle of publicity and offers support for media professionals in the form of training, coaching, legal advice and helpful online resources.
