Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

🏛️ swiss-courts-mcp

MCP Server for Swiss court decisions — Federal Supreme Court (BGer), Federal Administrative Court (BVGer), Federal Criminal Court (BStGer), and all 26 cantonal courts via entscheidsuche.ch

Deutsche Version

Overview

Access Swiss court decisions from all judicial levels through a single MCP interface. Combines full-text search with structured filters for canton, court level, date range, and law references.

Synergy with fedlex-mcp: Legislation (SR) + case law = complete legal research.

Features

• Full-text search across all Swiss court decisions
• Multi-stage law reference search with regex parser and Elasticsearch boost scoring
• Dedicated Federal Supreme Court search with chamber filter
• Canton and court level filtering
• Recent decisions feed
• Court taxonomy listing
• Decision statistics with aggregations
• Trilingual support (German, French, Italian)
• No API key required

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11 or higher
• An MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.)

Installation

pip install swiss-courts-mcp

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/malkreide/swiss-courts-mcp.git
cd swiss-courts-mcp
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quickstart

# Run directly
swiss-courts-mcp

# Or via Python module
python -m swiss_courts_mcp

Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "swiss-courts": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "swiss_courts_mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cloud Deployment (HTTP transport)

The HTTP transport is off by default. The default bind host is 127.0.0.1 (loopback only) — 0.0.0.0 must be opted into explicitly (the Dockerfile does this). Running HTTP without authentication logs a warning; only do so behind an authenticating reverse proxy.

# Local HTTP (loopback), no auth — development only
swiss-courts-mcp --http --port 8000

# Container (binds 0.0.0.0, auth enabled) — see Dockerfile
docker build -t swiss-courts-mcp .
docker run -p 8000:8000 -e MCP_AUTH_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" swiss-courts-mcp

Relevant environment variables (see .env.example):

Authentication validates the user identity from the JWT sub claim only; see ADR 0001.

MCP Protocol Version

This server pins MCP protocol version 2025-11-25 (constant PROTOCOL_VERSION in server.py). A regression test detects drift against the installed SDK so a protocol bump is a conscious change (version + CHANGELOG + this section). SDK updates land monthly via Dependabot.

Project Phase

Phase 1 — read-only (see ROADMAP.md). All tools are readOnlyHint: true; there are no writing or destructive operations. A move to Phase 2 (write) requires a clean re-audit and the gates listed in the roadmap.

Available Tools

Court Decision Search

Court Information

Tool Annotations

All seven tools share the same hints — they are read-only, idempotent, non-destructive, and reach an external system:

A rechtsrecherche prompt is also provided (a second MCP primitive alongside tools).

Example Use Cases

→ More use cases by audience →

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│         MCP Client (LLM)            │
│   Claude / Cursor / Windsurf        │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │ MCP Protocol
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐
│       swiss-courts-mcp              │
│  7 tools · Pydantic validation      │
│  Elasticsearch query builder        │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │ HTTPS (POST/GET)
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐
│       entscheidsuche.ch             │
│  Elasticsearch backend              │
│  No authentication required         │
│  Federal + 26 cantonal courts       │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Safety & Limits

Project Structure

swiss-courts-mcp/
├── src/
│   └── swiss_courts_mcp/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── __main__.py
│       ├── server.py            # MCP server, 7 tools + 1 prompt, lifespan, auth wiring
│       ├── api_client.py        # HTTP client, ES query builder, egress allow-list
│       ├── auth.py              # JWT bearer-token verifier (HTTP transport)
│       ├── config.py            # Settings object (env-driven)
│       ├── logging_config.py    # structured logging on stderr
│       └── models.py            # structured response envelope
├── tests/                       # unit (respx-mocked) + live + security tests
├── docs/                        # egress, secret-management, ADRs
├── .github/workflows/           # ci · security (gitleaks) · live · publish
├── Dockerfile                   # hardened container (non-root, 0.0.0.0 only here)
├── ROADMAP.md
├── pyproject.toml · CHANGELOG.md · LICENSE
├── CONTRIBUTING.md · CONTRIBUTING.de.md
├── SECURITY.md · SECURITY.de.md
└── README.md · README.de.md

Note (single-file tools): the 7 tools live in server.py rather than a tools/ package. At this count a single module stays readable; the registry (register_tools) keeps registration declarative. This is a deliberate deviation from the "split when > 5 tools" convention and will be revisited if the tool count grows.

Known Limitations

• Search is limited to decisions indexed by entscheidsuche.ch (not all decisions are publicly available)
• Full-text document content is not returned — only metadata, title, and abstract
• Statistics depend on Elasticsearch aggregation support of the backend
• The court taxonomy structure from Facetten_alle.json may vary

Testing

Unit tests mock all HTTP with respx; live tests hit the real API and run in a separate nightly workflow (live.yml), never blocking PRs.

# Unit tests (HTTP mocked) — what CI runs
pytest tests/ -v -m "not live"

# Live API tests (real entscheidsuche.ch)
pytest tests/ -v -m live

# Linting
ruff check src/ tests/
ruff format src/ tests/

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Security

See SECURITY.md for the security posture and how to report a vulnerability.

License

MIT

Author

Hayal Oezkan · malkreide

Credits & Related Projects

• entscheidsuche.ch — Swiss court decision search engine
• fedlex-mcp — MCP Server for Swiss federal law (legislation synergy)
• zurich-opendata-mcp — MCP Server for Zurich open data
• Model Context Protocol — Open protocol for AI tool integration

Installation

Run via uv's uvx — no clone or manual install needed. Add to your MCP client config (mcpServers for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf; use a top-level servers key for VS Code in .vscode/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "swiss-courts-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "swiss-courts-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}