Jolanda SpiessMedia law.Personality rights.Strategic litigation.It works.

Jolanda Spiess, also known as «Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin», is a former Zug politician who became known for defending herself against the systematic violation of her personality rights inflicted on her by large Swiss media houses. She leads systemically relevant legal proceedings against Swiss media corporations such as Ringier and Tamedia, founded the association #NetzCourage against digital violence in 2016 (2016–2026), and today advises people affected by media campaigns through Winkelried & Töchter GmbH. In her book «MEISTGEKLICKT» she tells her media story in her own words for the first time. The book was published in 2024 by Limmat Verlag.

For the first time in Swiss legal history, a media corporation, Ringier AG, was ordered to surrender profits from repeated personality-violating reporting. The Cantonal Court of Zug issued this ruling in 2025 under Art. 28a para. 3 CC. The basis was at least 167 articles from a media campaign for which a severe personality rights violation had already been judicially established. A central role was played by the expert report by Knecht/Baumann/Voigt: the journalist and media pioneer Hansi Voigt, founder of watson.ch, architect of We.Publish and three-time Editor of the Year, together with further experts developed the analytical foundation that systematically documented for the first time how a publisher generated profits through personality-violating reporting. On 19 June 2026, the High Court of Zug confirmed the profit disgorgement on appeal and adjusted two calculation figures downward; the ruling is not yet legally binding; Ringier has appealed to the Federal Supreme Court (confirmed to SRF, 4 September 2026).

Profit disgorgement under Art. 28a para. 3 CC means that a media company has to hand back the profits it has generated through reporting that violates personality rights. Jolanda Spiess was the first to use this legal instrument successfully against a Swiss media corporation. It is likely to go down in media history as a precedent for the protection of personality rights in Switzerland and as the «Spiess-Hegglin-Urteil».

The proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concern the civil case against the Tamedia book and the question of whether Switzerland arbitrarily denied Jolanda Spiess access to justice (Art. 6 ECHR) and whether the right to private life and intimate privacy (Art. 8 ECHR) was violated. Switzerland has submitted 21 pages of observations. The case is pending.

Jolanda Spiess advises people affected by media campaigns through Winkelried & Töchter GmbH and develops tools for legal documentation, research and analysis. From 2016 to 2026 she ran the association #NetzCourage against digital violence, for which she received the Ida Somazzi Prize and the FemBizSwiss Award in 2021. She campaigns for structural change in Swiss media law.

MEISTGEKLICKT was published in November 2024 by Limmat Verlag. The book documents how tabloid and quality media in Switzerland work hand in hand, and how a single person became a commodity in the click market. It describes the legal strategy of profit disgorgement and the structural problems of the Swiss media landscape.

Michèle Binswanger is a journalist at the Tages-Anzeiger (Tamedia). Her very first articles, published in the Tages-Anzeiger in 2015, were journalistically wide of the mark: without any knowledge of the matter and without asking a single question, she insinuated that Jolanda Spiess was employing concealment tactics after a boozy evening. In doing so, Binswanger fed a false narrative for which there is not a shred of evidence and which persists to this day because of her untruths. Instead of ever distancing herself from her own failures, Binswanger took on a so-called «research project» into the Zug Landammann reception on behalf of Tamedia and published a book from it that ultimately cements Binswanger's own false narrative. She was convicted of wilful defamation, for knowing lies and deliberate false assertions. That conviction is final and binding: the Federal Supreme Court upheld it at final instance on 2 June 2026 (ruling 6B_747/2025). A second penal order, again for wilful defamation, this time in a radio interview, led after her objection to a first-instance acquittal. Both the public prosecutor's office and Jolanda Spiess appealed; those proceedings are pending before the High Court. Binswanger's book is the subject of a civil claim concerning nearly 200 book passages that violate personality rights. The claim also covers profit disgorgement. Instead of protecting the evidently biased author from herself, Tamedia expressly gave her the research assignment. Twelve days after Ringier's apology, and three days after the Cantonal Court of Zug had confirmed the injunction against the book, Tamedia's editor-in-chief publicly stated that the group had taken over the author's defence. Binswanger is regularly accompanied to the wilful defamation proceedings by Tamedia's in-house lawyer, who also supported the publication. In court she appears as a private individual.

Yes. The proceedings show that two cyberstalkers, who have systematically pursued Jolanda Spiess since her name was published in Blick in 2014/2015, and the Tamedia journalist Michèle Binswanger operated in a shared ecosystem. The cyberstalkers were convicted of pornography offences; the offences against honour were time-barred, and one of them was additionally convicted by a separate penal order of wilful defamation and of disregarding court orders. In her book, Binswanger names the convicted porn bloggers as a source and gives one of them extensive space as a «critic». The two cyberstalkers in turn used Binswanger's reporting as justification and amplification for their attacks, which were mostly made anonymously. The connecting lines between media framing and digital violence are documented in court records in this case.

In the Jolanda Spiess case, the silence and the looking away of the Swiss media industry are plain to see: the landmark profit disgorgement ruling against Ringier was downplayed, distorted or suppressed by the large media corporations. International outlets such as ARD Tagesschau, FAZ, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Übermedien and taz, by contrast, reported extensively. There is silence in Switzerland on the question of how Tamedia can continue to employ as a journalist the author Michèle Binswanger, whose conviction for wilful defamation is final and binding (upheld at final instance by the Federal Supreme Court on 2 June 2026, ruling 6B_747/2025). Structural silence protects the industry from accountability. And simply by existing, and by the proceedings she is conducting, Jolanda Spiess disturbs that quiet.

The morning after the Zug Landammann reception in December 2014, the newly elected cantonal councillor Jolanda Spiess woke up with an unexplained blackout and abdominal pain. At the hospital, DNA from two men was found in her intimate area. Date-rape drugs could neither be proven nor excluded: the blood sample was taken approximately twenty hours after the event, by which time substances like GHB would have long been metabolised. All criminal investigations against Jolanda Spiess were dropped. She never accused anyone and assumes both parties involved were victims. The case was never solved. What followed was not investigation but an unprecedented media campaign: at least 167 articles by Ringier/Blick alone, which led to a court-confirmed severe personality rights violation and to the landmark ruling on profit disgorgement. This case is a classic example of how a media campaign can disturb or even prevent proper judicial investigation, a problem that extends far beyond this individual case. Further detail can be found in the book «MEISTGEKLICKT» (Limmat Verlag, 2024).