Should lying politicians go to prison?
After the Swiss Parliament's forced approval of a supplementary credit of almost 400 million euros for F-35 fighter jets ordered from the US, Carlo Sommaruga, a Social Democrat member of the Council of States, has called for the introduction of prison sentences of up to three years for government officials who tell political lies. For years, the Swiss government and administration claimed that the jets had been acquired for a fixed price.
Letting ourselves be fooled
La Tribune de Genève would like to see politicians take a more critical stance earlier on:
“Sommaruga need only have glanced at the newspapers to have realised years ago (years!) that we've been fed a load of nonsense about the aircraft. ... Lies thrive thanks to those who listen to them and get caught up in their social media feeds. It is the principle of diversion, of a debate that serves no other purpose than to create a clamour that distracts from reality. ... Lying to ourselves has become our collective punishment as citizens, because we refuse to recognise that our political class – liars or not – consists mainly of amateurs who no longer know where our allies or friends are, where our values and freedoms lie, or where those shoddy aircraft are that we mistake for fighter jets.”
Time for a little thought experiment
In France, too, the Green presidential candidate Marine Tondelier has called for penalties for deliberate political lies. Columnist Peggy Sastre urges caution in Le Point:
“As is always the case with such half-baked ideas, a fundamental test springs to mind: would we still support this new political weapon if it were to fall into the hands of our opponents tomorrow? ... I do not know whether Tondelier would welcome the same law with the same enthusiasm under a Rassemblement National majority, with the same judges tasked with determining the falsity of a statement, knowledge of that falsity and the intent to deceive. This little thought experiment has the great advantage of making it clear to us that a rule is only liberal if we accept that it also protects our opponents and can survive a change of government.”