Vera Rottenberg Liatowitsch, née Vera Rottenberg (born 15 August 1944) is a Swiss retired judge. She served on the
Swiss Federal Supreme Court
The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland (german: Bundesgericht, french: Tribunal fédéral, it, Tribunale federale, rm, ) is the supreme court of the Swiss Confederation and at the head of the Swiss judiciary.
The Federal Supreme Court i ...
from 1994 to 2012 and was the second woman elected to the country's highest court.
Life
Vera Rottenberg was born on 15 August 1944 in Budapest to a Jewish family.
Her Swiss mother Berta Passweg had lost her Swiss citizenship upon marrying the Hungarian Wilhelm Rottenberg. With the aid of the Swiss representative
Harald Feller
Harald Feller (1913, Switzerland – 2003) was a Swiss diplomat who saved Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, for which he was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1999.St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she managed to restore her citizenship. Vera Rottenberg's father survived the war and joined his family in Switzerland in 1946. Her sister Eva Koralnik-Rottenberg became a literary agent.
Education
Vera Rottenberg attended school in St. Gallen, and studied law at the University of Zürich, graduating in 1973 with a doctorate. In 1975, she was admitted to the bar. In 1980, she obtained a
Master of Laws
A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...
at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
.
Career
From 1973 to 1978 Rottenberg served as a clerk at the district court and the court of appeals of
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
. In 1978 she was appointed substitute judge at the district court, and in 1981 she was elected judge proper at that court. In 1990 she was elected to the court of appeals, where she was the second female judge and for some time the only one.
On 15 June 1994 the
Swiss Federal Assembly
The Federal Assembly (german: Bundesversammlung, french: Assemblée fédérale, it, Assemblea federale, rm, Assamblea federala), also known as the Swiss parliament (''Parlament'', ''Parlement'', ''Parlamento''), is Switzerland's federal leg ...
elected her to the Federal Supreme Court, from which she retired in December 2012. She replaced
Margrith Bigler-Eggenberger
Margrith Bigler-Eggenberger (14 March 1933 – 5 September 2022) was a Swiss jurist, university lecturer, judge and a member of the Social Democratic Party (SP). She was elected the first female judge of the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. ...
, the first female Supreme Court judge elected in 1974.
Other activities
Rottenberg has been a member of the
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz; SP; rm, Partida Socialdemocrata da la Svizra) or Swiss Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste suisse, it, Partito Socialista Svizzero; PS), is a polit ...
since 1978.
She is a member of the board of governors of the
International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IJL) strives to advance human rights everywhere, including the prevention of war crimes, the punishment of war criminals, the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction, and internat ...
, and was a member of the board of the consultation center for support of Holocaust survivors and their families (Tamach) until it closed in 2014.
Publications
* „Zum Richterbild in der Schweiz“ in: Richterbild heute - Anspruch und Wirklichkeit, Schriftenreihe des Bundesministeriums für Justiz, Wien 1994
* Der bedingte Strafvollzug
* Der neue schweizerische Zivilprozess aus höchstrichterlicher Sicht - Schlaglichter / Vera Rottenberg Liatowitsch. – In: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Zivilprozessrecht. – Basel (p. 59)
* Rottenberg Vera (1944-). Dokumentensammlung