Ringier sees no reason to apologize to Spiess-Hegglin

Wednesday's proceedings involve an article published by the View on December 24, 2014. In it, the tabloid showed the then Zug Canton Council members Spiess-Hegglin (Greens) and Markus Hürlimann (SVP) with their names and pictures, and ran the headline: "Sex scandal involving SVP politician: Did he ravish her?"

This article was followed in the View and other media dozens of articles on what might have happened between Spiess-Hegglin and Hürlimann at the Zug Landammann celebration. What exactly had happened was never legally clarified. Numerous View-articles have since been deleted from the Swiss media database SMD.

Spiess-Hegglin wants the cantonal court to find that the View had violated her personality with this article. The life of the then 34-year-old wife and mother had been shamelessly shaken by Ringier on Christmas Eve 2014, her lawyer said.

For the lawyer it is clear that the View had reported on something that was not relevant to the public. The newspaper had made a story out of a legally unresolved matter, had exposed her client and had violated the protection of victims.

The lawyer also described Spiess-Hegglin, who today campaigns against hate on the Net, as a strong woman. She had pulled herself out of the swamp by her own hair, she said. However, this new life of the former politician was not self-chosen, but forced upon her by Ringier and its sexist reporting, she said.

Spiess-Hegglin demands an apology from the media company. This should be printed in large letters on the front page of the View and also published online. This kind of satisfaction could help repair the damage to her client's reputation, the lawyer said.

Spiess-Hegglin is also demanding 25,000 Swiss francs as financial compensation. Furthermore, the View no longer be allowed to report on the events of 2014. This is to protect the woman from new polemics, it was said in court. She also reserves the right to sue for the return of the profits Ringier made from its reporting on her.

Ringier's lawyer asked the court to dismiss the case. The View had reported correctly at the time and had not committed any violation of privacy. Privacy is not absolutely protected; there is also freedom of opinion and freedom of the media.

For the Ringier lawyer had View rightly reported on the incidents. Spiess-Hegglin and Hürlimann had been presidents of their respective parties and had belonged to Zug's political prominence. She had reported him for an alleged sexual offense, and he had been placed in pre-trial detention. A cantonal councillor had put a cantonal councillor in prison, he said, summarizing the facts from the point of view of the View together.

The Zug prosecution authorities dropped the case against Hürlimann. The lawyer concluded that the sexual offense therefore did not exist. View had not invented the crime, he said. The question about the desecration in the article was not a violation of personality, he said.

For Ringier, Spiess-Hegglin is less a victim than a perpetrator. The lawyer accused her of celebrating self-pity and being covetous. It was she herself, she said, who was keeping memories of the 2014 scandal alive through her presence on social media. The verdict of the cantonal court should be available in about two months. (SDA)