Legal support structures

Criminalization of human rights defenders is ramping up in Switzerland and in the world. NGOs and international observers warn against this trend, which threatens the vitality of our democracy. Criminal procedures are costly, long, and cause a significant chilling effect on the exercise of fundamental rights. They also put movements in a defensive posture, where they have to defend their rights before standing up for their message.

Moving Change seeks to contribute to the consolidation of legal support structures so they can take over the judicial, political and media work of defense on fundamental rights. This should allow movements to focus on their core demands. To this end, we conduct the following activities:

1. Participate in and facilitate information exchange and collaboration across existing legal teams, NGOs, lawyers etc.
2. Consolidate tools for use by support structures: introduction guide, document templates, forms etc.
3. Develop a procedure monitoring tool to allow information exchange across experts, civil society and the wider public, in the framework of a mandate with a research team.
4. Prepare the launch of an association dedicated to the defense of fundamental rights through legal support.

Deliverables will be made available on this page as we work on them. If you want to follow up or support this project, please do subscribe to our newsletter and/or as a Mover. Thank you.