[Inclosure—Translation.]
The expulsion of Mermillod.
[From the Bund, February 18.]
* * * * The action of the Federal Council in expelling Mermillod has
occasioned surprise in some quarters, and persons are not wanting who,
regarding it as the banishment of a Swiss citizen, hold that an
unconstitutional punishment has been inflicted. This view is, in several
respects, incorrect. The expulsion of Mermillod is not a punishment; it
is rather a political measure of prevention, adopted to avoid the de facto establishment within the territory of
the confederation of a foreign authority unrecognized by the government
of the country. The measure was not directed against Mermillod as a
Genyese or Swiss citizen, but against the plenipotentiary and
representative of the Holy See, in so far as he would establish in the
canton of Geneva, by evading the proper state authorities, the authority
of the Roman curia. The decree of expulsion has no punitory effect upon
the person of Mermillod. From the moment that he renounces his
pretensions, founded upon the papal brief of the 16th of January, issued
in violation of the rights of the authorities of the country, he is at
perfect liberty to return to Geneva. But the honor and dignity of the
state require that the Federal Council should insist upon such a
renunciation. If Mermillod cannot consent to this recognition of the
authority of the government of the country over its own territory, he
cannot complain if he is prevented from offering it further defiance
within its own sovereign domain. Looked at and judged from this point of
view, no unprejudiced mind can avoid the conclusion that the Federal
Council is fully justified in the action it has taken, and that the
so-called martyrdom of Mermillod is of a very cheap quality.
It is an error, also, to allege that the expulsion of a Swiss citizen is
in no case constitutional. There is nothing in the constitution to
warrant such an opinion. Indeed the constitution, in the interests of
public order and religious peace, prohibits the order of Jesuits and all
affiliated societies within the limits of the confederation, making no
distinction between Swiss citizens and foreigners. The Swiss citizen who
is a Jesuit is forbidden to sojourn in Switzerland. The analogy between
this constitutional provision and the measure of the Federal Council
expelling Mermillod is sufficiently apparent. There can be, then, no
question as to the constitutionality of the action of the Federal
Council. It is not the Swiss citizen Mermillod who is banished; he can
return to his native country whenever he will promise to respect the
laws of the land and abstain from representing a foreign power in our
country. It does not well become a Swiss citizen who, against the laws
of the republic, places himself in relations with a foreign authority,
to parade his Swiss citizenship, for he is practically a foreigner. The
quality of a Swiss citizen is not designed to serve as a hypocritical
shield, from behind which to bid defiance to the sovereignty and laws of
the country.
There are others who assert that Mermillod should have had a trial before
a court of justice; that an expulsion by an administrative order,
without a judicial sentence, is unwarrantable. Such persons overlook the
fact that in the Mermillod affair it is not a question of individual
offense, of a violation of the penal code, but rather of a collision
between two public powers, (öffentliche Gerwalten,) upon one and the
same state jurisdiction, making it necessary for the state, from motives
of self-preservation, to set aside the conflicting power of the Church.
Mermillod is not, personally, a criminal; he has not committed any
offense which subjects him to prosecution before the court for violating
the provisions of the penal code; but his longer continuance in the
canton of Geneva as apostolic vicar, after the papal brief of January 16
has been pronounced null and void by the government, is inconsistent
with the dignity of the Swiss state. The whole controversy rests upon
diplomatic and political grounds, and, in this domain, the state cannot
recognize the authority of the courts as superior to its own. The
Federal Council, therefore, cannot submit to the decision of any court
whatever the question whether, upon the territory of the confederation
or in the representation of Switzerland abroad, its own authority shall
or shall not have the preference to that of a spiritual dignitary,
commissioned by the Pope and unaccepted by the federal government.
* * * * * * *
The Federal Council has, moreover, directed the expulsion of Mermillod
with the full consciousness of its responsibility to the Federal
Assembly, and will be fully able to justify the proceeding before the
confederate councils.
