The Basel-Stadt cantonal police are escalating their years-long effort to dismiss an officer found guilty of serious misconduct, including sexual harassment, racist remarks and using the Nazi salute, after a cantonal appeals court blocked his termination for a second time.
According to the police force, the officer allegedly sexually harassed a female colleague twice during a team outing and repeatedly referred to her and other female colleagues as “Scheissweiber” (a vulgar, misogynistic slur) while on duty. As a supervisor, he is also accused of tolerating and failing to stop other employees from using similarly misogynistic language.
The officer is further accused of racially insulting a Black person during the same outing and of officially ordering colleagues to stop “every Black person” on an unspecified street. In his private life, he allegedly used the phrase “Sieg Heil” on multiple occasions. He is also accused of actively encouraging, participating in, and tolerating regular after-hours beer drinking at the police station.
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Findings Legally Confirmed By The Cantonal Administrative Court
These findings were legally confirmed by the cantonal Administrative Court in September 2024. Basel-Stadt cantonal police terminated the officer’s employment on January 30, 2025, but the Personnel Appeals Commission overturned that dismissal in a ruling issued June 23, 2025. The police then appealed to the Appellate Court, which rejected their appeal in a judgment dated June 3, 2026.
The cantonal police announced Friday that they are now taking the Appellate Court’s ruling to the Federal Supreme Court, seeking to have the dismissal upheld.
According to police, the officer has shown no remorse and called his dismissal “incomprehensible.”
He is further accused of distributing excerpts of his March 30, 2023, transfer order via WhatsApp to colleagues, a document that revealed the names of the two female employees who had reported him. Those women were subsequently ostracized within the police corps and resigned as a result.
“Relationship of Trust Irrevocably Destroyed”
The police force describes the misconduct as especially serious given that police employees hold sovereign authority. It says officers must act neutrally, respectfully and in accordance with the rule of law toward everyone, regardless of gender, origin or skin colour — a standard that explicitly extends to how officers treat their own colleagues.
Police leadership argues that the officer’s conduct violated his duty of loyalty and the personal integrity required for police work, and that the relationship of trust needed to continue employing him has been “irrevocably destroyed.”
The force also argues that continuing to employ the officer would be incompatible with the new police leadership’s efforts to take a clear stance against sexism, racism and all forms of discrimination, and to make that stance visible through personnel decisions.
Why The Court Sided With Basel Police Officer
The Appellate Court’s June 2026 ruling found, in essence, that the confirmed misconduct could no longer serve as grounds for dismissal, because the police leadership at the time had already internally transferred the officer for the same violations rather than firing him. The court also noted that since his transfer, the officer had behaved “impeccably,” fully complied with all probationary conditions, and reportedly received the highest possible rating of “A+” in his first performance review afterward. His new supervisors reportedly described him as conscientious, reliable, loyal and a model of successful integration.
Police Reject The Court’s Reasoning
The cantonal police say they do not share this legal assessment and consider the ruling’s outcome “untenable.” They argue that current police leadership should not be bound by what they view as indefensible decisions made by previous leadership when the integrity of the police force as a whole is at stake.
The force contends that being legally obligated to continue employing the officer despite judicially confirmed serious misconduct is untenable and conflicts with the oath enshrined in the cantonal police law. Police leadership argues that such a legal outcome would be arbitrary and incompatible with the coherence of the legal system.
The case now awaits a decision from Switzerland’s highest court.
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