OpenCaseLaw — Swiss Caselaw, Statutes & Doctrine

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Uptime

100%

Response time

186 ms typical, 186 ms slowest 5%

Last check

2 h ago

Next check

in 3 h

How to call it

Add it to any MCP client that supports remote servers.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "opencaselaw-swiss-caselaw-statutes-doctrine": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.opencaselaw.ch/mcp"
    }
  }
}

42 tools

• search

  Minimal search tool following the deep-research search/fetch convention. Returns a ranked list of Swiss court decisions matching a query, each as {id, title, url, snippet}. Pair with `fetch` to retrieve a decision's full text by id. General (non-deep-research) clients should pref

• fetch

  Minimal fetch tool following the deep-research search/fetch convention. Fetches one Swiss decision's full text by id, returning {id, title, text, url, metadata}. The id comes from a `search` result (a decision_id like bger_6B_1234_2025; a docket number or BGE reference also resol

• search_decisions

  Use this tool to find COURT DECISIONS (Rechtsprechung): 1,050,000+ Swiss federal and cantonal decisions plus ~2,800 ECtHR decisions concerning Switzerland. Full-text search with keywords, phrases (in quotes), Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), prefix matching (word*), docket looku

• get_decision

  Fetch a single court decision with full text. Look up by decision_id (e.g., bger_6B_1234_2025), docket number (e.g., 6B_1234/2025), or partial match. Full text is truncated at 200,000 characters for very long decisions. Set full_text=false to get only metadata and regeste.

• get_decisions

  Use this tool to fetch SEVERAL decisions at once (1-10 ids) instead of calling get_decision repeatedly. Same data per decision — canonical citation strings, Markdown link, Regeste, metadata — in ONE call. Prefer this whenever you are about to read more than one decision from a se

• list_courts

  List all available courts with decision counts, date ranges, and language coverage. Use this to discover what data is available.

• get_statistics

  Get aggregate statistics about the dataset. Optionally filter by court, canton, or year.

• find_citations

  Given a decision_id, show what it cites and what cites it. Uses the reference graph database with 9.65M citation edges. Returns resolved citations with confidence scores and unresolved references.

• find_appeal_chain

  Trace the appeal chain (Instanzenzug) for a decision. Shows prior instances (lower courts) and subsequent instances (appeals to higher courts). Reconstructs the full procedural path, e.g. Bezirksgericht → Obergericht → Bundesgericht. Uses the is_prior_instance flag from decision

• find_leading_cases

  Find the most-cited decisions for a topic or statute. Authority ranking based on citation graph; a free-text topic ranks decisions whose regeste carries the query terms first (`regeste_match`: share of terms found, null without a regeste). Filter by statute (law_code + article),

• analyze_legal_trend

  Year-by-year decision counts showing jurisprudence evolution. Use with a statute reference (law_code + article), a text query, or both. Returns yearly counts with visual bar chart.

• draft_mock_decision

  Build a research-only mock decision outline from user facts. Combines relevant Swiss case law retrieval with statute references. If possible, enriches statutes with Fedlex text excerpts. IMPORTANT: The tool may return clarification questions (high/medium priority). High-priority

• get_case_brief

  Structured case brief: regeste, Sachverhalt, key Erwägungen (first 12 only — for orientation, NOT a pinpoint ranking), Dispositiv, statutes, citation authority, related cases. Accepts BGE ref, decision_id, or docket. To pinpoint which Erwägung supports a specific claim, use find_

• get_decision_structure

  Structured decision fields: Sachverhalt (facts), Erwägungen as numbered paragraphs ('1', '1.1', '2.3'), Dispositiv (ruling), Regeste (BGE only). Federal decisions only; for cantonal use get_decision. Returns excerpts; for verbatim full text of one Erwägung, use get_erwaegung. PIN

• get_erwaegung

  Verbatim text of ONE numbered Erwägung — the citable unit in Swiss practice (e.g. 'BGE 136 III 513 E. 2.3'). Use when the user already gave an e_number. If only a claim was given (no e_number): use find_relevant_erwaegung — never guess. Returns text + sibling Erwägung numbers. e_

• find_relevant_erwaegung

  Find which Erwägung paragraph(s) match a legal claim. Server-side FTS5+BM25 over per-paragraph text; returns top-k with confidence labels (high/medium/low) and a highlighted_snippet wrapping the matched sentence in <mark>…</mark> (quote it verbatim). When no_match=true or confide

• get_article_purpose

  Return verbatim text from the Federal Council Botschaft (or Erläuterungsbericht) explaining the legislative purpose of a specific article. Joins the verbatim Botschaft corpus (post-2003 BBl publications, Akoma Ntoso XML where available, PDF fallback otherwise) with the article-Bo

• search_botschaft

  Use this tool to retrieve and quote the VERBATIM text of Federal Council Botschaften (legislative messages). Where get_article_purpose answers 'why does Art. X exist?', this tool answers 'show me every Botschaft passage about TOPIC X'. Useful when the caller doesn't know which SR

• get_article_history

  Chronological story of a single statute article: current text + every linked Botschaft (enacted + amendments) + leading court interpretations + doctrinal commentary, all ordered by date. Combines statutes.db, materialien.db, reference_graph.db, and ok_commentaries.db into one tim

• get_regeste

  Get the official Regeste (head-note) of a Swiss court decision. The Regeste is the court's own formulation of the legal rule established — for BGEs especially, this is the canonical citation target. Often references specific Erwägungen via '(E. 5.2.1)' which can then be retrieved

• check_claim_support

  Verify whether a Swiss court decision actually supports a legal claim. Uses an independent Sonnet judge to compare the claim against verbatim text from the decision (Erwägung if pinpoint given, else Regeste, else first portion of full text). Returns {supports: yes|partial|no|cont

• attest_response

  MANDATORY FINAL-STEP AUDIT of your draft answer. Checks five hallucination classes: (1) every case citation (BGE/BGer/BVGer/BStGer/BPatGer/MKGE, FR/IT forms) exists and any pinpoint (E. X.Y) resolves to a real Erwägung; (2) every 'Art. X LAW' statute reference resolves; (3) quote

• cite

  Get the canonical Swiss citation string for a decision reference. CALL THIS BEFORE writing any case citation in your response. Returns ready-to-embed citation_string (DE/FR/IT variants plus a canonical URL) and a verbatim rule_statement. If the reference doesn't exist, returns ex

• get_doctrine

  Get statute text + leading cases + doctrinal timeline + Federal Council Botschaft (legislative intent) + scholarly commentary for a Swiss law article or legal concept. ALWAYS USE THIS for questions about the purpose, intent, or ratio legis of a provision — it returns the Botschaf

• generate_exam_question

  Generate a Swiss law exam practice question (Fallbearbeitung) based on a real BGE. Returns a fact pattern (Sachverhalt) from a real court decision and a hidden analysis (applicable statutes, leading case, legal test, correct outcome). Workflow: present the fact_pattern and hint t

• get_law

  AUTHORITATIVE LOOKUP for the text of any Swiss law article — federal OR cantonal — from two local mirrors. Federal (canton='CH', default): Fedlex mirror, all federal acts (OR, ZGB, StGB, ZPO, StPO, BV, SchKG, BGG, DBG, AIG, BVG, KVG …) in DE/FR/IT; names match in any language, ca

• search_laws

  Use this tool to find STATUTE ARTICLES by topic — full-text over every locally indexed article, federal (Fedlex mirror) AND cantonal (LexFind mirror, all 26 cantons), interleaved. Not for whole laws by name (search_legislation) or court decisions (search_decisions). BM25-ranked p

• get_commentary

  Look up a scholarly legal commentary from OnlineKommentar.ch (CC-BY-4.0) for a Swiss federal law article. Without article: lists available commentaries for that law. With article: returns the full commentary text, authors, and citation. Covers 19 Swiss laws including BV, OR, ZGB,

• search_commentaries

  Use this tool ONLY for article-anchored commentary — doctrinal discussion tied to a specific statute article: OnlineKommentar.ch / OpenLegalCommentary.ch (federal law) and the Kommentar zur Schaffhauser Verwaltungsrechtspflege (Schaffhausen VRG and JG; abbreviation 'VRG SH' / 'JG

• search_scholarship

  Use this tool for open-access SCHOLARSHIP (Lehre): OA journal articles (sui generis et al.), OA legal commentaries (OnlineKommentar, OpenLegalCommentary — this tool SUBSUMES search_commentaries), dissertations and theses from Swiss university repositories, and federal legal-polic

• get_scholarship

  Fetch a single OA legal publication (article, dissertation, commentary, etc.) by its pub_id. Returns full metadata + abstract + full text if available + cross-citations to statutes and decisions.

• find_scholarship_citing_statute

  Find OA legal scholarship that cites a given Swiss statute article. Sourced from article-anchored commentaries (OnlineKommentar / OpenLegalCommentary) PLUS full-text citation extraction across the open-access journal corpus (~90k statute references resolved from 9k full-text reco

• find_scholarship_citing_decision

  Find OA legal scholarship that cites a specific Swiss court decision. Reverse direction of the scholarship↔caselaw bridge: given a decision_id (e.g. 'bge_BGE_140_III_86' or 'bger_4A_571_2008'), return open-access publications that cite it in their full text. Citations are extract

• list_scholarship_sources

  List the open-access legal scholarship sources currently indexed, with publication counts by source, type, and language. Use this to discover what corpora are available before searching.

• get_scholarship_full_text

  Fetch the full text of an OA legal publication by pub_id, on demand. Cached after first fetch so subsequent calls are instant. License-gated: only records under CC-BY-* (except CC-BY-ND), OA-Swiss-federal, or OA-author-permitted-reuse are extracted. ND/all-rights-reserved records

• get_materialien

  Look up Materialien for a Swiss federal law article. Returns up to three things: `sources` = per-article digests of legislative intent (BV and BGFA only — 167 articles); `botschaft_documents` = the Federal Council messages that concern this article, with BBl citation, title and F

• search_materialien

  Use this tool for DIGESTED legislative history — per-article intent summaries and key arguments, not verbatim text. COVERAGE IS NARROW: BV and BGFA digests (167 articles) plus BV debate transcripts, and nothing else. For any other law this returns 0 hits, which means 'outside thi

• search_legislation

  Use this tool to find WHOLE LAWS by name or subject — 33,000+ federal and cantonal enactments from LexFind.ch; the entry point for cantonal questions ('Hundegesetz Bern', 'loi sur l'énergie Vaud'). Not for article-level topic search (search_laws) or the core federal codes (get_la

• get_legislation

  Retrieve the FULL TEXT and article list of a specific Swiss law, federal or cantonal, by LexFind ID or SR/systematic number. For federal laws in the Fedlex mirror this is instant (local SQLite). For cantonal laws, the law is downloaded from LexFind as PDF, parsed with PyMuPDF, an

• browse_legislation_changes

  Browse recent legislation changes for a canton or federal level. Shows new laws, amendments, and abrogations with dates.

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