RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: Geneva: Judicial murder- Beheaded witch may be pardoned  Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:14 pm | |
| The last witch executed in Europe should be exonerated because she was a victim of "judicial murder" more than 200 years ago, said the government of the Swiss canton of Glarus.
The 1782 beheading of Anna Goeldi for an alleged case of poisoning was a miscarriage of justice, the cantonal government said.
Today's decision to recommend "rehabilitation" - or clearing her name - came after a long debate in the eastern Swiss region and was taken in consultation with the Protestant and Catholic churches.
The decision reverses the refusal last year by the cantonal government and the Protestant Church council to consider an exoneration. The government changed its view after the cantonal parliament urged it to reconsider.
The recommendation to acknowledge that Goeldi was unfairly prosecuted and not a witch goes back to the parliament for final approval.
Goeldi, a maidservant in the house of prominent burgher Johann Jakob Tschudi, was convicted of "spoiling" the family's daughter, causing her to spit pins and have convulsions.
Tschudi, a doctor and magistrate, was alleged to have had a love affair with Goeldi. Should his adultery have been made public, his reputation would have been seriously damaged.
Goeldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis was carried out at a time when witch trials had disappeared from most places in Europe.
The Protestant Church council, which conducted the trial, had no legal authority and had decided in advance that the woman was guilty, the government said. She was executed even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning, it added.
"This is to acknowledge that the verdict handed down came from a non-legal trial and that Anna Goeldi was the victim of judicial murder," said a government statement.
Goeldi's torture and execution was even more incomprehensible as it happened in the Age of Enlightenment when "those who made the judgment regarded themselves as educated people", the government said.
"In spite of that they tortured an innocent person and had her executed, although it was known to them that the alleged crime was neither doable nor possible and that there was no legal basis for their verdict."
But it noted the exoneration should not give the impression that today's generation assumes the responsibility for the history of the ancient villagers.
The case was brought to light through a book by local journalist Walter Hauser, who highlighted the links among Tschudi, Goeldi and the village authorities.
The government said exoneration also can be an acknowledgment that an unknown number of other innocent people whose cases cannot be reviewed were killed over the centuries.
Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland, as they were elsewhere.
LNK
_________________
Anarcho Capitalists Retail , OZschwitz Downunder BoutiqueAnarcho-Capitalists,AnCaps Forum,Anti-State,Anti-Statist,Inalienable Rights Defenders,Non-Aggression Principle,Non-Initiation of Force Principle,Rothbardians,Anarchist,Capitalist,objectivism,Ayn Rand,Anarcho-Capitalism,Anarcho-Capitalist,politics,libertarianism,Ancap Forum,Anarchist Forum,Vulgar Libertarians,Hippies of The Right,Forum for Anarcho-Capitalist,Forum for Anarcho-Capitalists,Forum for AnCap,Forum for AnCaps,Libertarian,Anarcho-Objectivist,Freedom, Laissez Faire, Free Trade, Black Market, Randroid, Randroids, Rothbardian, AynArchist, Anarcho-Capitalist Forum, Anarchism, Anarchy, Free Market Anarchism, Free Market Anarchy, Market Anarchy
 |
|
