The Forest in the Dock

The forester does not sit in the dock like a criminal. He sits there like someone who has spent his entire life counting trees and is now suddenly being counted himself.

In front of him lie files. Behind him lies forest.

The courtroom of the Freiburg cantonal court appears austere. Light wood, bare tables, computer screens. Yet through the open windows shines a summer that looks suspiciously peaceful. One could almost forget why one is sitting here. It is not about a murder, not about a robbery, not about intrigue. It is about a tree.

A single tree.

It had been silent for decades. It had provided shade, shed leaves, carried birds. Then one day it fell over and buried a woman's previous life under its weight.

Since then she has been in a wheelchair.

The tree is silent.

The judges must speak for it.

The injured party gazes calmly ahead. Those who do not know her notice first only the wheelchair. Only later does it become clear that this wheelchair is not the actual verdict—but rather its prehistory.

She had gone for a walk.

Not on a forbidden path. Not during a storm. Not in a night full of thunder.

A summer day.

An educational trail.

A picnic area.

Then the forest crashed down.

Such accidents are usually told with a single sentence: A tree fell.

But between "stood" and "fell" sometimes lie decades—and now several thousand pages of court documents.

The presiding judge speaks matter-of-factly.

"Was the tree recognizably dangerous?"

A simple question.

The forester barely lifts his head.

"A forest does not consist of individual trees."

The sentence hangs in the air.

An expert answers.

"In a place with particularly many visitors, every single tree must be assessed."

Every.

That small word sounds heavier than the trunk of a beech.

The defense paints a picture of a forest that can never be fully controlled.

One cannot manage a forest like a parking lot.

One cannot inspect millions of trees daily.

Nature remains nature.

It ages.

It dies.

It falls.

The prosecution responds equally calmly.

"This was not about just any forest."

It shows aerial photographs.

The picnic area.

The educational trail.

The bench.

Precisely there people linger.

Right there, special care must be taken.

The discussion changes.

Suddenly it is no longer the tree on trial.

Not even the forester.

On trial is the question of how safe nature must be at all.

The forester looks tired.

He knows nothing of headlines.

He knows beetles.

Drought.

Fungal infestation.

Storms.

For years more and more trees have been dying.

Climate change is accelerating what once took decades.

At the same time, more and more people are coming.

Since Corona they seek recreation in the forest.

The forester does not describe his daily work like a civil servant.

He describes it like a man working against time.

"You cannot look at every tree."

The sentence does not sound like an excuse.

More like a surrender.

The judges retire.

One waits.

Nobody speaks.

Only paper rustles.

When the verdict is pronounced, the room hardly changes visibly.

Guilty.

Negligent grievous bodily harm.

Twenty daily rates suspended.

No prison.

And yet no victor leaves the courtroom.

The woman remains paralyzed from the waist down.

The forester remains a forester.

Only his profession has become a different one.

Outside, the trees rustle.

They know nothing of statutes.

They know neither negligence nor duty to ensure public safety.

They grow.

They age.

They die.

And sometimes they fall.

But since this verdict, it is no longer just a tree that falls.

With it falls a decades-long certainty.

That the forest is a place where nature may write its own laws.

Now courts write alongside it.

Whether the final chapter has already been written will not be decided in this courtroom.

That will be determined by the Federal Court.

Until then the forest remains the same.

Only the view of it has changed.

After the Verdict – Reflections

People always ask how a verdict could have been prevented. The same question is asked of a roof after it has collapsed, of a ship after it has sunk, or of a person after their heart has stopped beating. Rarely does anyone ask it beforehand.

The forester might have been able to examine every tree. He might have tapped every trunk with a small hammer, scrutinized every crown through binoculars, had every rotten branch felled. Then perhaps this tree would not have fallen.

But perhaps another one would have.

Because the forest is not a clockwork mechanism. It is older than all statutes and will outlive them.

One asks how the forester could have reduced his punishment.

Perhaps he should have wept.

Courts do not love tears, but they do not distrust them either. A man who says: "I did everything correctly" sometimes insults the victim's pain, even though he speaks the truth. But a man who says: "I will never forget this woman" does not speak about guilt, but about humanity. And sometimes humanity weighs more in court than logic.

One questions his lawyer.

The lawyer defended the forester.

Perhaps he should have defended the human being.

He spoke of forest management, of professional guidelines, of natural hazards, of dead beeches and duty to ensure public safety. Everything was right. Everything was reasonable.

Only one thing was missing.

The woman.

In court, one must never forget that at the beginning of every file stands a human being. Judges rule according to laws. But they listen to stories first.

Perhaps the defense should have said:

"My client meant this woman no harm. He will carry the day of her misfortune with him for the rest of his life. He does not ask the court for pity. He only asks not to be held almighty. He became a forester because he loves trees. Not because he rules over them."

Perhaps this sentence would have changed nothing.

Perhaps everything.

And finally one asks about the judge.

Was he strict?

Was he unjust?

Was he driven by the spirit of the times?

No.

He was a judge.

Judges rarely judge only about the person before them. They always judge also for those who come tomorrow.

Fifty years ago, perhaps the tree would have been guilty.

Today one looks for the responsible party.

Tomorrow perhaps one will ask the legislator.

Thus guilt wanders through time like a lonely wanderer through the forest.

And the forester?

He will walk among the beeches again.

But from now on, every dead branch he hears crack above him will no longer sound merely of wood.

It will sound like a verdict.