Switzerland Violated Vegan Prisoners’ Freedom of Conscience
A prison sentence removes a person’s liberty. It does not erase their conscience. That distinction has now been reinforced by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that Switzerland violated the rights of two vegan prisoners after authorities failed to properly examine their requests for nutritionally balanced, entirely plant-based meals. For decades, veganism has been casually reduced to a food preference. A lifestyle. A personal choice somewhere between avoiding gluten and disliking mushrooms.
But veganism is not a diet.
It is an ethical conviction based on rejecting the exploitation of animals. Refusing to eat their flesh, milk, eggs or other secretions is just one practice attached to that belief. But it is also one of its most direct expressions. The Swiss authorities failed to take that seriously.
Dependent on the State
The case involved two anti-speciesism activists who were deprived of their liberty in separate circumstances.
The first was held in pre-trial detention between November 2018 and October 2019. The second was involuntarily detained in a psychiatric hospital between February and April 2021.
Both repeatedly requested nutritionally balanced meals containing no animal-derived ingredients. Both depended entirely on state authorities for their food. Neither could simply leave, visit a shop, cook at home or choose somewhere else to eat. But neither was systematically provided with meals that met the requirements of veganism.
This is precisely when freedom of conscience becomes more than an abstract promise. A person living freely may be able to avoid businesses, institutions and meals that violate their beliefs. A prisoner or involuntary psychiatric patient cannot. Every plate is controlled by someone else. When the state takes control of a person’s food, it also takes responsibility for ensuring that control is not used to force them to act against sincere ethical convictions.
Switzerland failed to meet that responsibility.
Buried in Paperwork
The authorities did not simply reject the requests honestly and allow the applicants to challenge those decisions. Instead, they created a procedural dead end. When the prisoners complained, the relevant authorities responded with letters rather than formal administrative decisions. One prison claimed that measures had been introduced to accommodate the first applicant’s beliefs as far as possible. The psychiatric department told the second applicant that his complaint had been forwarded to someone else who would contact him. Neither response settled the issue. Neither provided a proper legal decision. Neither gave the applicants a meaningful route to appeal. When they tried to challenge the letters, the domestic courts declared their appeals inadmissible because there was no formal decision to appeal.
The applicants asked for decisions. The authorities gave them letters. The courts then said there was nothing they could examine. Convenient.
The European Court described this approach as excessively formalistic. The applicants’ complaints were never examined on their merits. Authorities argued about paperwork while avoiding the actual question: were these men being denied meals consistent with protected ethical beliefs?
It was bureaucracy used as a shield.
The result was a violation of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees access to an effective remedy. A legal right is worth very little when the state can prevent anyone from enforcing it by refusing to issue the paperwork required to begin an appeal.
Veganism Is a Serious Ethical Conviction
The Court also examined whether vegan beliefs could fall within Article 9 of the Convention, which protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
For a belief to qualify, it must reach a sufficient level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance. The Court found that the applicants’ vegan convictions met that standard. Their refusal to consume animal-derived food had a sufficiently close and direct connection to their ethical beliefs. The Swiss Government did not challenge the sincerity or consistency of those beliefs.
This was not a case of two people requesting a preferred menu. They were trying to avoid participating in practices they considered fundamentally wrong. Eating animals and their secretions would have forced them to act against the principles guiding their lives.
The Court recognised that.
Veganism cannot be respected in theory while its most basic practices are ignored. An authority cannot claim to recognise someone’s freedom of conscience while placing animal-derived food in front of them and treating their refusal as dietary fussiness.
Beliefs are expressed through actions.
For vegans, refusing products obtained through animal exploitation is one of those actions.
Not an Automatic Right Without Limits
The judgment does not mean that every request must be granted immediately without any consideration of circumstances. The Court noted that European countries take different approaches to vegan meals in prisons and psychiatric institutions. Many assess requests through proportionality or reasonableness, considering practical, financial and nutritional factors. But those considerations must actually be examined. Authorities have a positive obligation to address sincere requests properly, within a clear legal framework. They must consider the ethical belief, the person’s dependence on the state and whether accommodation is reasonably possible. What they cannot do is ignore the substance of the request, hide behind technicalities and prevent the person affected from obtaining a real decision. The Court did not rule that logistics are irrelevant. It ruled that conscience is not irrelevant either. The Swiss authorities failed to strike any meaningful balance because they never properly examined the competing interests. They did not reach a reasoned conclusion after taking vegan convictions seriously. They avoided reaching a conclusion at all.
That failure violated Article 9.
Six Votes to One
The Court ruled in favour of the applicants by six votes to one.
Switzerland was ordered to pay €12,000 to the first applicant and €4,000 to the second for non-pecuniary damage. The wider reporting on the case also states that Switzerland must cover approximately €10,000 in legal costs and review its procedures for future requests. The money acknowledges the harm done to these two men. The legal principle may prove much more valuable. The judgment establishes that sincere vegan convictions can fall within the protection of freedom of conscience. It confirms that refusing animal-derived food can be a direct manifestation of those beliefs. It also makes clear that people under state control must have a practical way to challenge decisions affecting them.
Authorities cannot brush veganism aside as a trend, a preference or a self-imposed inconvenience. Not in prisons. Not in hospitals. Not anywhere people are entirely dependent on public institutions for food.
The UK Has Already Moved Further
The UK’s updated Food in Prisons Policy Framework now requires prison kitchens to accommodate belief-based veganism in the same way they accommodate faith-based diets. A vegan prisoner should not have to prove that their convictions are less serious than a religious prisoner’s before receiving suitable food. Freedom of conscience is not reserved for beliefs involving a deity.
In 2022, guards at a Suffolk prison reportedly withheld plant-based meals in an attempt to expose supposed “fakers”. Vegans are routinely treated as dishonest, demanding or unserious. Their beliefs are tested in ways other protected convictions rarely are. Institutions act as though providing beans, grains, vegetables and other plant foods is an extraordinary concession rather than a basic accommodation. The suspicion always seems to fall on the vegan. Rarely on the authority insisting that animal products must remain the default.
Prison Does Not Cancel Conscience
People in prison retain human rights.
That principle can become unpopular when the people involved have committed crimes, are awaiting trial or have taken part in confrontational activism. But rights that apply only to sympathetic people are not rights. They are privileges awarded according to public approval. The first applicant had been detained following alleged damage and break-ins at slaughterhouses and butcher’s shops. That context does not weaken the judgment. It strengthens the principle behind it. The state does not get to decide that a person’s ethical beliefs deserve less protection because those beliefs have led them into conflict with institutions or industries. Nor should psychiatric detention allow authorities to treat conscience as disposable. Both men were under state control. Both consistently requested vegan food. Both were denied a proper examination of those requests. Both were trapped in a system that refused to make an appealable decision and then used the absence of that decision against them. The Court saw through it.
Veganism Is Not a Menu Choice
This case exposes a broader refusal to understand veganism on its own terms.
Vegans do not merely choose different ingredients. They reject the idea that animals exist to be bred, confined, used and killed for human convenience.
Food is only one part of that conviction, but it is an unavoidable part. A person may wear the same clothes for years or avoid buying cosmetics during detention. Eating is different. It happens every day. Usually several times. Forcing someone to choose between hunger and violating a protected belief is not meaningful accommodation. Offering meals that are only partly plant-based is not enough if the remaining ingredients still come from animal exploitation. Telling someone that their request has been “considered” means little when no formal decision exists, no appeal is possible and the meals remain unsuitable. Veganism deserves the same seriousness and respect as other protected beliefs. Not because vegans want special treatment. Because equal treatment requires institutions to stop treating animal exploitation as neutral while every objection to it is treated as inconvenient.
Switzerland did not merely fail to provide two suitable menus.
Its authorities failed to recognise the weight of the convictions behind the requests. They failed to provide a functioning remedy. They failed to treat the applicants’ consciences as something the state was obliged to respect. The European Court has now made the position clearer. A prison may control where someone sleeps, when they move and what food is available.
It does not own their conscience.