Glarner punished for removing traffic sign by his own hand

The complainant removed the sign sometime between May 2017 and March 2018. It is not clear exactly when, but the man was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence. This is the result of a decision published by the Federal Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The man from Glarus had written to the municipality of Glarus Nord three times between February and June 2017 requesting the removal of the signage. In his last letter to the mayor, he wrote that it was therefore clear that "I will remove the sign and charge you a flat rate of CHF 200, payable within 10 days".

Years of dispute

Although the man never issued such an invoice to the municipality, the lower courts were nevertheless entitled to assume, based on the other facts, that he had removed the traffic sign.

Before the Federal Supreme Court, he claimed that the cantonal authorities had not recorded the facts correctly. However, he did not provide sufficient justification for this, as the highest Swiss court wrote in its ruling.

The Glarus resident has apparently been involved in a "multi-faceted dispute" with the municipality for years, as stated in the Federal Court ruling. In one case, for example, he took the municipality to court because it failed to pay an invoice he had issued. (Judgement 6B_105/2024 of 9.1.2025)