Mörgeli case: charges filed against Sunday newspaper

The prior publication of the commission report on the "Mörgeli affair" by the Sonntagszeitung has a legal aftermath: The responsible supervisory commission of the Zurich cantonal council is filing a criminal complaint for violation of official secrecy, as it announced on Monday. In its Whitsun edition, the Sonntagszeitung had quoted from the report, which was still secret at the time, and also posted it on the Internet. Two days later, the Supervisory Commission Education and Health (ABG) had wanted to inform about the investigation results at a media conference. The newspaper's publication put the commission in a difficult position. It decided on the same day to bring the media conference forward by one day, to Whit Monday. "An announcement seemed to us to be the right way," ABG President Jörg Kündig said in response to a question from the SDA news agency. The fact that the report was leaked to the media is, according to Kündig, "not only a nuisance, but an outrage".

Among other things, the 21-page report accuses Zurich Education Director Regine Aeppli (SP) of exceeding her authority in the "Mörgeli affair". As is known, the affair led to the dismissal of university employees Christoph Mörgeli and Iris Ritzmann and to the premature resignation of the then rector Andreas Fischer. According to the ABG, Aeppli ordered the dismissal of Christoph Mörgeli as curator of the Museum of Medical History. This was not within her competence as president of the university council. The government councilor herself had denied having given such an order. (SDA)

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