The Cantonal Price of Poverty

To obtain legal aid (the assumption of court and lawyer's fees for people without sufficient means), a Swiss court must first determine whether the applicant is "indigent" within the meaning of Article 117 of the Civil Procedure Code. This calculation rests on a concept common to the whole of Switzerland, the "basic subsistence minimum" (Grundbetrag), but each canton applies its own flat-rate surcharge to it: a percentage that increases this minimum to account for the litigant's procedural needs, or, in one case, applies no surcharge at all.

This study researched and verified, decision by decision, the rate applied in each of the 26 Swiss cantons, using a deliberately strict confirmation criterion: a rate is treated as "confirmed" only if it rests on at least two independent court decisions, or on a general official directive (applicable to all cases, not just the one judged). Over 135 decisions were read in full over the course of this research. The result: among the 18 cantons meeting this criterion, the range runs from 0% (Ticino, which explicitly applies no surcharge) to 30% (Schwyz, Bern, St. Gallen, Appenzell Innerrhoden), for one and the same federal legal concept. 2 further cantons (Thurgau, Obwalden) have only one decision identified so far: they are documented separately, as an indication rather than a confirmed rate.

Concretely, for a single person whose basic subsistence minimum stands at CHF 1,200 per month (a figure used recurrently in the decisions reviewed), the surcharge added to their recognized expenses varies as follows:

• CHF 0 in Ticino (0%, no surcharge recognized)
• CHF 180 per month in Basel-Landschaft or Basel-Stadt (15%)
• CHF 360 per month in Schwyz, the canton of Bern, St. Gallen, or Appenzell Innerrhoden (30%)

A gap of CHF 360 per month, or CHF 4,320 per year, in the threshold used to determine whether a person can pay for a lawyer themselves, based solely on their canton of residence, with an otherwise strictly identical financial situation.

This study also documents, separately from the confirmed rates, the 2 cantons for which only one decision could be found despite repeated research (Thurgau, Obwalden), the 4 cantons where practice remains openly discretionary or is not sufficiently established by repeated case law (Zurich, Vaud, Glarus, Neuchâtel), as well as the 2 cantons for which no usable source was found despite targeted, multi-pass research (Schaffhausen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden).

Article 117 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), in force throughout Switzerland since 2011, sets out a single principle: anyone who lacks sufficient resources is entitled to legal aid, provided their case does not appear devoid of any chance of success. This principle itself derives from Article 29, paragraph 3, of the Federal Constitution, which guarantees a constitutional right to free legal aid.

But neither the Constitution nor the CPC sets out a single calculation method for determining what counts as "insufficient" income. This question has been left to judicial practice, and each cantonal court (sometimes each judge) applies its own case law to convert the basic subsistence minimum, calculated according to guidelines that are themselves harmonized at the Swiss level (Conference of Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Officials), into an indigence threshold for legal aid. It is this discretionary surcharge, and this alone, that varies from zero to 30% depending on the canton documented in this study.

As things currently stand in this research, this disparity has not been legally established as a violation of the principle of equal treatment (Article 8 of the Constitution): Swiss federalism has always tolerated differences in cantonal practice in the application of federal law, particularly in civil procedure. This study takes no position on this point; it documents a fact that has so far been little quantified, so that the question can be raised on the basis of verified figures.

Reading example: for a couple (basic subsistence minimum of CHF 1,700), the recognized surcharge ranges from CHF 0 (Ticino) to CHF 510 (Schwyz, Bern, St. Gallen, Appenzell Innerrhoden), a gap of CHF 510 per month, CHF 6,120 per year, in calculating the indigence threshold, with an otherwise strictly identical financial situation, based solely on canton of residence.

In concrete terms: two households with exactly the same income and the same actual expenses may receive a different response to their legal aid application depending on whether they live in Ticino or in the canton of Bern, with the latter entitled to a markedly higher amount of recognized expenses each month when calculating their needs, which correspondingly reduces their apparent "surplus" and makes access to legal aid easier.

Guiding principle: no data is put forward without a court decision or official directive read in full and cited with its exact reference (court, case number, date, ground, or page). No average, estimate, or extrapolation is presented as an established fact; unconfirmed rates are explicitly identified as such.

Confirmation criterion: a single court decision may be a one-off example rather than proof of a settled cantonal practice. This is why a rate is classified as "confirmed" in this study only if it rests on at least two independent court decisions (different case files, if possible with different dates or before different courts), or on a general official directive of the cantonal judiciary (circular, regulation, registry calculation form) applicable to all cases and not just a single file. Cantons for which only one decision could be identified despite repeated research are documented separately, as an indication rather than an established fact.

Scope of the research: over 135 decisions were read in full over the course of this study, with a target of around ten independent decisions per canton. For cantons with a limited body of case law (small cantons, low volume of decisions published online), this target could not always be reached despite systematic research extended to first-instance decisions, other types of jurisdiction (administrative, criminal), and general statements of practice published by the cantonal authorities themselves; the limit reached is then explicitly documented rather than papered over with an approximation.

Source of the decisions: the OpenCaseLaw database (over one million indexed decisions from federal, cantonal, and regulatory authorities), queried canton by canton with searches in German, French, and Italian depending on each canton's official language. Every decision retained was read in full (complete text, not a mere summary) before being cited.

Cross-checking: every candidate retained underwent independent verification, confirming that the cited passage genuinely supports the claim advanced rather than a related but distinct legal concept. Several leads were encountered and then discarded during the research because they had nothing to do with calculating indigence for legal aid: a lawyer compensation tariff, a tax surcharge, a surcharge linked to a return to better fortune after bankruptcy, professional meal expenses.

Transparency on divergences: where the research revealed an evolving or contradictory cantonal practice rather than a single fixed rate (notably Geneva, Thurgau, Neuchâtel), this study documents both lines rather than arbitrarily selecting only one.

Verifiability: every confirmed rate is accompanied, in the annex, by a direct link to a representative selection of the source decisions, allowing any newsroom to verify the citation itself before publication.

Acknowledged limitation: this study does not claim to have covered the entirety of each canton's case law. It documents what could be verified through systematic and rigorous research, and explicitly flags cantons for which no usable source was identified rather than leaving a silent gap.

Federal law (Article 117 CPC) sets out a principle common to the whole of Switzerland: no one should be denied access to justice for lack of means. Yet the concrete mechanism that defines who is "poor enough" to benefit from it remains, for the portion of the calculation examined in this study, fragmented across 26 cantonal practices, of which only 18 could be established with certainty at this stage (each with at least two independent sources), with a range running from no surcharge at all to a 30% surcharge between the two confirmed extremes.

This study does not claim to settle whether this diversity is justified by differences in cantonal cost of living, or whether it constitutes a problematic inequality of treatment with regard to the principle of equality before the law. It aims to document, on the basis of verified sources and particularly thorough research, a reality little known to the general public, and to provide journalists, researchers, and legal practitioners with a solid factual basis for examining it further.