Schawinski goes to Strasbourg

He is submitting a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, as Radio Eins announced on Sunday. "The ruling of the Federal Administrative Court in the matter of radio licenses is cynical, incomprehensible and therefore unacceptable to us," Schawinski is quoted as saying in the communiqué. In April, the Federal Administrative Court wrote off complaints from Schawinski as irrelevant (Werbewoche.ch reported). The complainants around Schawinski had already announced at the time that they would examine further options for taking action against the decisions. An ordinary appeal to the Federal Supreme Court is not possible in the matter of radio licenses. According to Schawinski and his partners, they want to break the media monopolies in Graubünden and Aargau in the protracted dispute over radio licenses. An appeal has been lodged against the radio licenses for Radio Südostschweiz (formerly Radio Grischa) and Radio Argovia.

The Federal Administrative Court had declared Schawinski's appeals invalid on the grounds that submitted license applications may no longer be amended. A license application is of a highly personal nature, meaning that a change of party, ownership structure or financing is inadmissible. Schawinski accuses the Federal Administrative Court of this being an "extremely transparent pretext", as stated in Sunday's communiqué. "They simply did not want to deal with this important matter." (SDA)

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