On 7 October, the Committee of Ministers ended its supervision of the execution of the judgment Lăcătuș v. Switzerland, concerning the disproportionate interference with the private life of a vulnerable Roma person (violation of Article 8). In 2014, the applicant was fined for unintrusive begging and subsequently imprisoned for five days for not paying the fine. The European Court criticised the serious, automatic and almost inevitable sanction provided by cantonal law, which undermined the human dignity of an extremely vulnerable person.
Following the judgment, the canton of Geneva ceased enforcing its absolute ban on begging, and more than 18,200 pending cases were dropped. Legislative reforms then followed: in December 2021, Geneva amended its Criminal Code to remove the absolute ban while prohibiting only organised, exploitative or location-specific begging (in force since February 2022). In Vaud, a 2024 amendment limited sanctions to aggressive, intrusive or deceptive forms of begging, with prior warnings required before sanctioning passive begging in sensitive areas. In Basel-Stadt, a partial ban adopted in 2021 prohibited begging in several public spaces, including parks and near schools; this law was appealed before the Federal Tribunal, which in March 2023 found the prohibition of begging in public parks disproportionate. Other cantons have introduced or maintained similar targeted reforms. No comparable cases have since been brought before domestic courts.
