Facts
The applicant [S.], born in 1915 in Trimmis, has been placed several times in the cantonal care and treatment facility Waldhaus in Chur due to his alcoholism. In 1958, he was placed under guardianship and subjected to a prohibition on consuming alcohol. On 14 March 1966, the guardianship authority of the Five Villages district placed him in a treatment facility for alcoholics, based on two expert opinions from the management of the Waldhaus facility dated 1949 and 1958, as well as on the experiences made in the meantime, which would have shown that the measures ordered up to that point had remained without effect.
[S.] appealed against this decision to the District Court of Unterlandquart, and then to the Small Council of the Canton of Grisons as the superior guardianship supervisory authority, requesting the hearing of several witnesses on his behavior. The Small Council dismissed the appeal. [S.] then filed a public law appeal for violation of Art. 4 Cst.
Considerations
The Federal Tribunal admitted the appeal to the extent that it entered into the matter. It considered that the Small Council had violated S.'s right to be heard by not informing him of the result of the evidentiary proceedings and by not giving him the opportunity to comment on it. This constitutes a violation of Art. 4 Cst., regardless of whether it could have had an influence on the substance of the decision.
The Federal Tribunal also ruled that the telephone hearing of S.'s wife and former employer did not meet the formal requirements for the hearing of witnesses. According to cantonal law, witnesses must be heard in person in order to verify whether their freedom to testify is not impaired by the presence of third parties or other…