Rudolf Friedrich, justice minister for two years, had died aged 90. The Winterthurer Landbote reported on Monday that the former member of the centre-right Liberal Democratic Party died last Tuesday.
Friedrich was born in Winterthur, canton Zurich in 1923 and studied political and economic science at the University of Zurich. In 1957, he opened his own law firm in Winterthur.
He represented the Liberal Party at various levels: as a Winterthur town councillor (1962-75), Zurich cantonal councillor (1967-77) and a parliamentarian in the House of Representatives (1975-1982).
Friedrich was president of the House of Representatives military commission and pushed for a strong national defence as a guarantee of Swiss neutrality and independence.
He was elected to the seven-member cabinet on December 8, 1982, picking up the justice portfolio.
His name was attached to the «Lex Friedrich», a law limiting the acquisition of Swiss property by people abroad. It had previously been known as the Lex Furgler and was itself replaced by the Lex Koller.
He also launched two revisions to the asylum law to cope with the influx of immigrants – primarily Tamils – at the beginning of the 1980s.
In 1983, he was criticised for ordering the closure of the Bern office of the Russian news agency Novosti because it was considered subversive and engaged in spying.
Explosion
On August 7, 1984, his house was attacked. No one was injured in the explosion – which has never been fully explained – but a wave of arrests followed among the Winterthur youth scene.
Rudolf Friedrich surprisingly stepped down from the cabinet after only two years on August 29, 1984, citing health reasons.
As an ex-cabinet minister, Friedrich pushed for Swiss membership of the United Nations and the European Economic Area. Other roles included being founder of the Swiss Helsinki Association, president of the Pro Juventute foundation and a board member of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper, in which he frequently shared his opinions.
These included direct criticism of Christoph Blocher, billionaire figurehead of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, whose election to the cabinet he described as a «misfortune».