Recent Exercises in Swiss Direct Democracy

Swiss approve pioneering legal heroin program

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS – Nov 30, 2008
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jvPQobAzzd8b8rx5Ltg7TxMtz4bAD94PEKD80

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved Sunday a move to make permanent the country's pioneering program to give addicts government-authorized heroin.

At the same time, voters rejected a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.

Sixty-eight percent of the 2,264,968 voters casting ballots approved making the heroin program permanent. It has been credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts since it began in 1994.

Some 63.2 percent of voters voted against the marijuana initiative.

On a separate issue, 52 percent of voters approved an initiative to eliminate the statute of limitations on pornographic crimes against children before the age of puberty.

Olivier Borer, 35, a musician from the northern town of Solothurn, said he welcomed the outcome in part because state action was required to help heroin addicts, but he said legalizing marijuana was a bad idea.

"I think it's very important to help these people, but not to facilitate the using of drugs," Borer said. "You can just see in the Netherlands how it's going. People just go there to smoke."

Parliament approved the heroin measure in a revision of Switzerland's narcotics law in March, but conservatives challenged the decision and forced a national referendum under Switzerland's system of direct democracy.

The heroin program has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s, supporters say.

The United States and the U.N. narcotics board have criticized the program as potentially fueling drug abuse, but several other governments have started or are considering their own programs modeled on the system.

The marijuana issue was based on a separate citizens' initiative to decriminalize the consumption of marijuana and growing the plant for personal use.

Jo Lang, a Green Party member of parliament from the central city of Zug, said he was disappointed in the failure of the marijuana measure because it means 600,000 people in Switzerland will be treated as criminals because they use cannabis.

"People have died from alcohol and heroin, but not from cannabis," Lang said.

The government, which opposed the marijuana proposal, said it feared that liberalizing cannabis could cause problems with neighboring countries.

"This could lead to a situation where you have some sort of cannabis tourism in Switzerland because something that is illegal in the EU would be legal in Switzerland," government spokesman Oswald Sigg told The Associated Press.

The heroin program is offered in 23 discreet centers across Switzerland that offer a range of support to nearly 1,300 addicts who haven't been helped by other therapies. Under careful supervision, they inject doses of carefully measured to satisfy their cravings but not enough to cause a big high.

The aim is to help the addicts learn how to function in society, with counseling from psychiatrists and social workers.

Sabina Geissbuehler-Strupler of the right-wing Swiss People's Party, which led the campaign against the heroin program, said she was disappointed in the vote.

"That is only damage limitation," she said. "Ninety-five percent of the addicts are not healed from the addiction."

Health insurance pays for the bulk of the program, which costs 26 million Swiss francs ($22 million) a year. All residents in Switzerland are required to have health insurance, with the government paying insurance premiums for those who cannot afford it.

The current Swiss statute of limitations on prosecuting pedophile pornography is 15 years. The initiative will result in a change in the constitution to remove that time limit.

Previously only genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and terrorist acts were defined under Swiss law has being without a statute of limitations.

The government had argued that it will be difficult to put the change into practice, partly because of the legal problems of determining the onset of puberty, which varies with each child. Also, the government said, it will be very difficult to prove such crimes in trials many years after the crimes are committed.

The proponents said in campaign literature that sometimes it only becomes possible years later to build a case against a pedophile when other victims "also finally find the strength to bring charges."

"It must therefore be only up to the victim to decide whether it should be forgotten or prosecuted," the proponents said.

SWITZERLAND: Direct Democracy Fuels Controversy

The right wing SVP in Switzerland has again launched yet another effort to use Swiss direct democracy to forward their radical views on cultural and immigration issues. All of their recent efforts have been defeated at the polls, showing that direct democracy serves well to strike a balance between factional radicalism and the general will of the majority. (click here to see our previous Switzerland posts for information on recent similar referenda). - Editor

Direct Democracy Against Dada

In Switzerland, a right-wing party is using local referenda to try to de-fund the avant-garde.

Source: http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/28297/direct-democracy-against-dada/

ZURICH—More than half the word’s referenda are said to take place in Switzerland, where voters are invited to weigh in on national, cantonal, and local matters up to four times annually. In large part this is because Swiss citizens can easily petition for a referendum; all they have to do is collect 100,000 signatures in 18 months and the item will be added to the national voting agenda. Generally the issues that get people most riled up are civic matters relating to the military, urban planning, health, and immigration, but several recent referenda have touched on the cultural landscape, and on the ballots this September are two votes that threaten arts venues, both initiated by the right-wing party Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP).

While the SVP views culture, and in particular traditional culture, as an important factor in the well-being of the country, the party campaigns against excessive arts funding and has taken a cynical position regarding contemporary art. Its first target this fall is Zurich’s publicly funded Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of Dada in 1916. Founded by artists and intellectuals Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Marcel Janco during World War I as a place where any form or tradition of artistic enterprise was welcome, the cabaret reopened in 2004, with significant funding from the Swatch group and the city, as a center for artistic experimentation. Having proved neither commercially viable nor entirely avant-garde, today it occupies a place outside the mainstream art world. The catalyst for the referendum was a controversial casting by sex therapist Maggie Tapert for sex “slaves” to meet the needs of her female clients; the event was moved to another venue and turned out to be a tame affair, but not before the vote was set in motion to determine whether the city should continue the center’s “wasteful” funding. Tapert has decried the vote, saying, “Those who are financing the Dada house want it to be a museum where nothing actually happens. The very things that honor the Dada tradition are frightening to those in power.” The SVP said in a statement, “The people of Zurich are already jaded about the waste of money [on cultural subsidies].”

The second referendum is to take place in the town of Uster, about 10 miles east of Zurich, where the Villa am Aabach faces a similar challenge. Initiated by the SVP along with the Schweizer Demokraten (SD), a conservative party with isolationist tendencies, this vote attempts to revoke funding for the local contemporary art space, allegedly for cost-saving reasons — and despite the fact that the SVP was represented on the jury that recently selected the center’s new artistic directors, Monika Bühler and Michael Gutscher. Bühler and Gutscher’s program was to start in September, but in light of the vote the Villa will remain empty until a decision is made, after which it might reopen in 2009. Since its inception as an art space in 2002, the Villa has hosted the local creative community but also emerging international artists including Ferit Kuyas, Johanna Näf, Rory Macbeth, Paul Harper, and Bettina Carl, and its incumbent directors have proposed a program that would create further links with the local community while maintaining the space’s international perspective. The September 28 referendum will either guarantee funding for three

Switzerland: Direct Democracy and the Environment

As this article illustrates, environmental groups have been able to implement conservation measures using Swiss direct democracy. Initiative and referendum allow the populus to protect their environment and ecology when higher powers in government and industry may have no incentive or desire to do so. - Editor


Switzerland ranks No. 1 in the green index, scoring near-perfect marks.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/143682

For a glimpse of primeval Europe, head for the high mountains of eastern Switzerland. In the wild scenery of the Swiss National Park, the authorities have sought to re-create the conditions that prevailed 5,000 years ago. No trees are felled, no meadows mown and no animals hunted. The ibex and the bearded vulture, once driven to near extinction, now flourish again after their reintroduction in the last century. Wolves have returned to the region, and so has the occasional bear.

A rare gesture to nature conservation from a nation famously devoted to commerce? Not so. When it comes to environmental protection, the Swiss can point to tradition. As far back as 1914, the nation created the oldest national park in the Alps or anywhere in Central Europe. And the tradition persists with a heap of legislation that establishes more than 20 new national parks. Small wonder that the country took first place in Yale and Columbia's Environmental Performance Index with a set of near-perfect marks.

It's an achievement that few would challenge. More than half the forests that cover 30 percent of the country have gotten Forest Stewardship Council certification, the international hallmark of good practice. In the EPI, Switzerland scored 65 in the effectiveness of its conservation measures, compared with an average of 25 for its neighbors and 51 for others of similar wealth. This is all the more impressive considering its population density—176 people per square kilometer, more than twice the figure for Greece, largely concentrated in the valleys and lowlands. The country has managed to juggle the needs of people with the needs of its wildlife, earning it more than double the average European score for biodiversity. "You can swim in any of our lakes, and turn on any tap and drink the water with pleasure," says Hans-Peter Fricker, head of the Swiss office of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Why such dedication? One explanation begins with history and the importance of the Alpine landscape in the national psyche. The four original cantons that came together to form the nucleus of the Swiss nation in the 13th century encompass spectacular mountain landscapes. "The Alps are part of the whole Swiss mythology," says Reto Soler, Swiss representative of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps. "It is where Switzerland was born."

Environmentalists have taken advantage of Swiss direct democracy, which allows citizens to demand a referendum on the issues of their choosing. The current construction of the world's longest and deepest rail tunnel beneath the St. Gotthard massif in the Alps—to divert heavy freight traffic off the roads—follows a national vote. So, too, did moves to ban heavy foreign trucks.

More than 40 years ago Parliament passed laws to protect wetlands, meadows and Alpine streams and glaciers. Care for the environment is now written into the Constitution. An article added in 1996 explicitly obliges the government to promote sustainable farming and the upkeep of the rural landscape. New parks, seen as a boost for tourism and conservation, will be scattered across the country.

On the environment, this nation isn't standing still.

© 2008

Swiss Far-Right Forces Vote on Minaret Ban

Shortly after they were soundly defeated by the Swiss electorate who rejected their last referendum aimed against the country's immigrant population, the far-right Swiss People's Party is at it again, using Switzerland's direct democracy in an attempt to push their discriminatory agenda against immigrant residents. This editor has little doubt that this referendum will be squashed by the Swiss people as well, again proving that Swiss direct democracy is functioning as it should, providing checks and balances based on the will of the majority, not the whims of politicians with their own radical agendas. - Editor


Swiss far right forces vote on minaret ban

Matthew Weaver and agencies guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday July 8, 2008 Article history

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/islam.race

Far right groups in Switzerland have collected enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning minarets, the distinctive towers of Islamic architecture.

In what is being seen as a sign of growing Islamophobia in Europe, more than 100,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition to halt the construction of minarets.

Under Switzerland's direct democracy rules, that level of support is enough to trigger a referendum. The Swiss interior ministry today confirmed a vote would take place, without setting a date.

The petition was launched by Ulrich Schlüer an MP from the controversial Swiss People's party, which was accused of racist campaigning last year.

In a bid to get immigrants' families deported if their children had been convicted of violent crime, the party ran an advertising campaign showing three white sheep on a Swiss flag kicking out a black sheep with the caption: "For more security."

The president of Switzerland, Pascal Couchepin, said the government would recommend that voters rejected the proposed minaret ban.

The organisers of the petition argue that the minarets, which are used on mosques, are a symbol of political and religious claims to power, not just a religious sign.

Schlüer said last year: "We've got nothing against prayer rooms or mosques for the Muslims. But a minaret is different. It's got nothing to do with religion; it's a symbol of political power."

If Schlüer's camp wins the referendum, the Swiss parliament must pass a law enshrining a minaret construction ban in the constitution.

Opponents say such a ban would violate religious freedom.

More than 310,000 of Switzerland's 7.5 million population are Muslims, according to the federal statistical office.

The UN expert on racism, Doudou Diene, has said the campaign is evidence of an "ever-increasing trend" toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe.

Switzerland: Immigration Referendum Update - The People Have Spoken

Swiss Reject New Citizenship Rule

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7429728.stm

Critics said the posters for tougher rules had racist undertones.

Voters in Switzerland have rejected a move to make it even harder for foreigners to obtain citizenship.

In a referendum, they voted 64% against a bid to revive the practice of approving citizenship candidates by secret ballot and scrapping appeals.

Secret ballots were outlawed five years ago by the supreme court, which judged them to be discriminatory.

Switzerland has one of Europe's highest numbers of foreign-born residents - more than 20%.

Many Swiss said not allowing voters to have the final say on who became a citizen violated the country's system of direct democracy, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Berne.

However, opponents of Sunday's poll, which was called by the nationalist Swiss People's Party, suspect the real agenda behind it was not Swiss democracy, but how best to keep certain groups out of Switzerland, our correspondent adds.

Twelve years of residence

Initial reporting of the poll results showed that the measure to raise the threshold for citizenship was soundly defeated, gaining approval in only one of Switzerland's 26 cantons (states).

Swiss laws on naturalisation are already tough.

Candidates for citizenship must live in Switzerland for at least 12 years, they have to pass tests in one of the official languages of the country, and culture, and those born in Switzerland have no automatic right to citizenship.

The final hurdle is approval by the local community at a town meeting.

The supreme court outlawed secret ballots five years ago after it became clear that some towns were regularly rejecting candidates from the Balkans, Turkey and Africa, while approving those from Western Europe.

It also gave those rejected the right to appeal.

The Swiss People's Party, the largest in parliament, wants the secret ballots back and the right to appeal removed.

More on the Swiss Naturalization Referendum Debate

The author of the following article from the U.K appears to agree with the principles of the Swiss referendum on immigration procedures, albeit not for the same motives as the right wing party that introduced the referendum. The party sought to use the referendum as a tool by which to limit immigration by discrimination. The comments that follow the article indicate that many are not in agreement. - Editor

The political uses of Swiss-ishness

Source: http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/admin/2008/05/24/the-political-uses-of-swiss-ishness

Tony Curzon Price (London, oD): A friend of mine tells this story of a first encounter with a French scientist, met under the building-sized replica of the DNA molecule in Crick and Watson's laboratory: English Scientist: "Beautiful, isn't it ?... " pointing at the bobbles and wire. French Scientist: "Not like Fermat's theorem". English Scientist: "Of course, I speak from Anglo-Saxon empiricism". French Scientist: "I know. You should never have burned Joan of Arc".

These are the coded short-cuts which, with enough depth to the relationship, speak loudly. Helvetiophiles will know this kind of short-cut well: Helvetiophile: "Democracy can be distributed, look at Switzerland". Party Animal: "Don't you miss the strong leadership, the direction, the re-alligments and historic moments?" Helvetiophile: "I meant for everyday democracy, for an informed citizenry, for people responsible for their collective decisions". Party Animal: "Ah yes. Cuckoo clocks, Nazi gold, gnomes and sanatoria ..."

Time Magazine is running the latest episode in this rapid reduction. (Hat tip to the enthusiasts at Direct Democracy). The populist anti-immigrant Volkspartei (SVP) has organised a referendum aiming at returning the power to bestow citizenship to the lowest level of government, the Communes. This is where the power lay until 2003, when a Supreme Court ruled that the repeated refusal of citizenship by some German-speaking rural Communes was against the federal constitution. Naturalisation became a centralised administrative procedure.

So is the SVP referendum to add to the litany of abuse: "... sanatoria and anti-immigrant referenda"? I am not sure. The Volkspartei holds plenty of nasty opinions, and it wants this referendum to reduce the rate of naturalisations. But I think it is right, and for legitimate reasons that are far from the considerations of the Volkspartei, to keep the decision at the most local level possible.

Naturalisation is not asylum; it is a request to join a group for the long haul, to participate in a future. It is quite right for asylum and sanctuary to be universal rights, protected by international law. But not naturalisation. Naturalisation engages everyone, and responsibility for it should be active and positive on all sides. A bureacratic Britishness test does not politically engage either the host or the potential subject.

Before 2003, it was always known that the French-speaking cantons, and especially Geneva, were an easy touch for naturalisation. There is no reason to think that these open political cultures would become closed if the power to naturalise were returned to them. Many London local authorities would similarly be open if naturalisation decisions were so-devolved here. Switzerland taken as a whole naturalised more people per head of population in the decade before 2003 than any other European country.

Of course, giving localities the right to naturalise imposes an "externality" on the other localities within the state. This is the same for citizenship of the EU---whoever Sweden naturalises also has residence permission in Poland. There is the danger that "rogue liberals" will become extra-soft on naturalisation knowing full-well that some of the cost will be borne by the xenophobic autarchies of the union. Decentralised naturalisation seems to have an automatic bias in favor of openness---anyone naturalisable by the most liberal is naturalisable by the group.

The Volkspartei, it hardly needs to be said, is not championing states rights for this reason. There is a danger that "rogue openness" will stretch the federation to breaking point, but if it does not get that far, then it offers a wonderful compromise: all the benefits of a liberal naturalisation policy while the xenophobes can continue to feel that the foreigners in their midst are not there with their blessing.

Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will point to us and say: "How could you have done it? how could you have excluded so many, so systematically, from your protected gardens?" We should have an answer that does not involve the excuse that these decisions were taken by an impenetrable central bureaucracy that we trusted to do the right thing. Localising naturalisation would be a good place to start.


MarkZ said:
Mon, 2008-05-26 15:10
You're making an interesting point here. However you seem to ignore why this initiative is so highly disputed here in Switzerland. It's not because we're taking power away from the communes as the SVP wants everyone to believe. It's because the SVP wants to bypass our constitution and basic human rights. The main point about this initiative is that the decisions made by the communes are irrevocable and not subject to a need for explanation. Basically this would mean that the commune could decide "We don't like your skin colour, so go away" and no one would be able to do something about it. However it is a basic right, from our constitution, that you are allowed to know the reason for such a decision.
Thanks anyhow for motivating me to register and post at openDemocracy. MarkZ


opendemocracy said:
Mon, 2008-05-26 16:24
Thanks, MarkZ for the clarification.

Can you explain the pre-2003 situation --- did that have the rights of communes subordinated to Federal over-ruling? Or is the SVP essentially asking for a return to the status quo ante?

I am also interested in the notion of "reason" in democracies. Is it not a reason to say: "you were refused naturalisation because your demand was voted down"? And if you were told: "your demand was voted down because this commune is full of nasty xenophobes", then would you have been given a reason or a motive? The first is a better reason, it would seem to me.

But I suppose this just delays the fundamental point. While sanctuary and refuge ought to be rights, administratable by courts, I am less sure about naturalisation. Pretending that it is not political pushes xenophobes into anti human rights positions.


paul.carline said:
Mon, 2008-05-26 21:17
Very interesting. We (members of IRIE - Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe which specialises in direct democracy) were discussing this very issue last weekend in Marburg.

The discussion became quite heated - especially between two Swiss members: one who lives in Switzerland, the other now living in Finland. The first was defending the pure principle of popular sovereignty on which the Swiss system is supposed to be based i.e. a local direct-democratic decision by simple majority in a referendum has the highest level of legitimacy and should not take second place, even to the national constitution or the Constitutional Court.

The second believes that there must be some limitations on popular sovereignty - that it cannot be allowed to infringe fundamental human rights and that in this case the Constitutional Court was right to ban the practice of deciding on applications for naturalisation by secret ballot.

It's important to remember the precise circumstances which led the court to make its decision. On 12th March 2000, 56 applications for naturalisation were decided on by referendum in the Emmen local authority (commune) are of the canton of Lugano.

48 of the 56 were rejected. The 8 people accepted were all Italian, the others Jugoslavian, Hungarian, Turkish and Polish-Dutch. One of the initiators of a popular initiative to allow these decisions to be made by local referendum stated: "The voters [in Emmen] made the right decision by rejecting all the applications of those people who are not in harmony with our central-European way of thinking".

The court decided that this was a clear case of discrimination based on ethnicity and was therefore unconstitutional.

Tony Curzon Price takes an easy route by setting the (in principle admirable and enviable) direct-democratic rights of the Swiss against the centralised, opaque and undemocratic decision-making by Whitehall we have to suffer here.

But surely the issue deserves a more in-depth consideration. It forces us to face up to one of the limitations of democracy - even in the best-case scenario of Swiss direct democracy. To repeat: can popular sovereignty come before fundamental human rights?

It's an important question, because a decision in favour of local democracy opens the door to other potential 'breaches' of human rights. It also forces us to confront the dilemma of the "tyranny of the majority" and ask: is Swiss-style direct democracy the ultimate, the gold standard - or must we not find an even better solution?

It should also make us think about the need for such rituals and such tokens of 'belonging' - and whether we must not move beyond the nation-state and the identity it claims to confer. Why not plan for European citizenship - or ultimately global citizenship and an end to all forms of discrimination?

Paul Carline (Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe)


Anthony Barnett said:
Tue, 2008-05-27 10:24
Tks Paul - this discussion is now touching one of the most basic and familiar issues but is now all the more important thanks to President Bush's attempt to impose 'democracy' by force.
The key, surely, is that we favour "rights based democracy" (see an earlier discussions about this in OurKingdom; for example, here.
This means that the majority do not have a tyrannical sovereignty and cannot remove the fundamental rights of minorities (eg to liberty or freedom of speech).
The issue becomes more complicated here as the issue is who should be allowed into the political community. Is this a political question that the majority has got the right to decide (whether you like it or not)? Or is it a question of fundamental human rights that has to be decided according to universal rules however inadequately interpreted by human judges?
I think Tony has it right: if the issue is asylum, ie flight from torture and violent repression, it must be decided by human rights law whatever the views of the majority. But if the issue is economic and practical then long live politics.
But what, will come back the objection, if the majority acts in a way that is discriminatory? Well, this needs a longer debate but can here be life without any discrimination?


MarkZ said:
Tue, 2008-05-27 11:34
@opendemocracy:
It depends. Some communal rights are, some not. However, in the case of naturalization, the law (as far as I know) didn't state explicitly whether it was subordinated or not. The federal court simply made clear that the communes had to give a reason for a rejection.["Voted down" is not a reason in my opinion. It should be more along the lines of: "You've never had more than a temporary job, and we feel that you're not trying enough, so we believe that you'd be a burden to our social security."] If the commune did not give a reason, the court would force them to go over it. So all the court can do, is to tell the communes that their decision as it is now doesn't count. The court CANNOT naturalize someone on its own. The commune can reject someone several times. If the court doesn't accept it the first time, they just have to explain why they decided on a "no" and say so the second time.

@paul.carline:
The court did not ban the practice! It simply made an amendment (I think that's the most appropriate word) to it, namely, the need for an explanation. Additionally it stated that the right to complain applies also to the decision about naturalization. (I hope this is understandable, I'm Swiss and English isn't my mother tongue...)

Swiss Immigration Referendum: Should Direct Democracy Determine Naturalization Case by Case?

Switzerland has a longstanding tradition of direct democracy, but a debate is currently raging in Switzerland over just how that direct democracy should apply when the result may be in violation of Switzerland's constitutional provisions. A referendum has been introduced by the right wing Swiss People's Party aimed at reducing the influx of foriegn immigrants into the country. The move would allow individual communities to decide naturalization cases on a case by case basis locally rather than by the central government using constitutional guidelines which attempt to eliminate discrimination. It is the opinion of this editor that the measure, if passed, would clearly allow discrimination to occur, and that that practice would be unconstitutional. Therefore, in order for these local votes on naturalization cases to be a valid exercise of direct democracy, the constitution itself would have to be amended by a nationwide referendum so that it would allow such discrimination to be an accepted part of the fabric of the Swiss nation. - Editor

Who Decides Who Is Swiss?

By HELENA BACHMANN/GENEVA
Tuesday, May. 20, 2008 By HELENA BACHMANN/GENEVA

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1807955,00.html

Walking along Rue de Cornavin, near Geneva's main train station, Nesim, a 34-year-old immigrant from Turkey, stops to look at a poster plastered to a wall. It shows five dark-colored hands grabbing a stack of Swiss passports above the phrase STOP MASS NATURALIZATIONS.

The message is not lost on Nesim, whose dream of becoming a Swiss citizen is turning into a nightmare. Although he has fulfilled all the criteria necessary for naturalization — a 12-year residency requirement, fluent language skills, solid employment record as a mason, and good cultural integration — "I feel ostracized," he says. "I wonder whether I'll ever be 'good enough' to become Swiss."

The answer to Nesim's question may come on June 1, when the voters will decide who should have the final say in naturalization procedures: the authorities or the local people.

The controversial initiative was forced by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), which put up the poster that unsettled Nesim and has collected the obligatory 100,000 signatures required under Swiss law to put a constitutional amendment to a national vote. It seeks to overturn a 2003 Federal Court ruling that deemed ballot box votes on naturalization an infringement on the rights of would-be citizens. The decision was handed down after residents of the town of Emmen in central Switzerland repeatedly voted to reject citizenship applications from non-Western European nationals living in their midst.

A staunch proponent of tighter immigration policies, the SVP says Switzerland naturalizes more foreigners than any other European nation, and official figures seem to support that claim. The party charges on its website that more than half of all citizenship requests — in 2006, approximately 50,000 were granted in this country of 7.5 million — go to immigrants from the Balkans and Turkey. The SVP claims those immigrants commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes and abuse Swiss social and welfare benefits. Some official statistics do attribute the rise in serious infractions to resident foreigners, but the numbers are not clear. For example, official statistics show that in 2007 nearly 70% of all prisoners in Switzerland were foreigners, but some experts say that is because foreigners are considered a flight risk and are more likely to be sent to prison than local criminals.

The SVP argues that in a country based on grassroots democracy where voters can challenge any legislative decision by launching a referendum, the people, not what the party considers to be lenient government authorities, must approve each citizenship request. Each community must pick a competent panel to decide who among the local applicants is eligible for naturalizations, with the final decision left to the voters, the SVP says. While this system may be more difficult to implement in large cities, in small towns and villages, says Francis Matthey, a former socialist parliamentarian and currently President of the Federal Commission on Migration, "it would play right into the SVP's hands, because of the party's strong agrarian base." Under the current system a rejected candidate for citizenship has the right to appeal; the SVP wants any such decision to be irrevocable.

To Nesim, who is planning to apply for naturalization at the beginning of 2009, direct democracy is a double-edged sword. He worries that the new law might open the floodgates to subjective and harsh judgments. "What if someone doesn't like the fact that I am a Muslim?" he asks. "He or she will vote against me based on their personal bias."

Not so, says Christian Girard, a 19-year-old high school senior who is the vice-president of SVP's youth section in Geneva and supports the initiative. "Direct democracy has been a Swiss tradition for 150 years and we know how to vote responsibly," he says. "Naturalization must be a political, not an administrative process. And in a political process, people should be the ones to decide."

This stance does not resonate with Matthey, who says the system proposed by the SVP is flawed and open to discrimination. "It would give the voters in each community the power to decide, arbitrarily, another person's future, without so much as justifying their reasoning," he argues. "In a democracy, the voter should have a say in the issues relating to laws or principles, not to other people's lives."

Matthey says that the SVP neglects the fact that Switzerland needs immigrants to boost its labor force, and, in fact, the country has a long tradition of opening its borders to immigrants and refugees; at present, some 22% of the population is foreign-born, one of the highest rates in Europe.

"Naturalizing these people is not a matter of simply doing them a favor," he says. "A person who becomes a citizen will be more involved and respectful of our laws and values."

Girard insists that he — and his party — is not against granting citizenship to foreigners who are assimilated. "But we should be more selective in this process, rather than just handing out Swiss passports like candy to anyone who asks."

As the debate rages on, Nesim ponders his future. It is of some relief to him, he says, that the government as well as Switzerland's other parties, are urging voters to reject the SVP's initiative, deeming it unconstitutional and difficult to apply in practice. He hopes that, come June 1, the people will heed the advice. "I have waited a long time to be able to apply for citizenship, but the thought of townsfolk weighing in on it scares me. Should this initiative be accepted, I just won't apply for naturalization. Still," he adds, "whatever happens in the end, I will always love this country. It's a paradise."

Soon enough Nesim will find out if his love is reciprocated, or whether he's destined to remain a stranger in paradise forever.

Switzerland: A Model Democracy

The following recent article dispels some of the myths about Switzerland, and highlights it's longstanding tradition of direct democracy. - Editor

A Model Democracy

By not joining the EU and by standing up to the US, Switzerland has been able to follow its own successful path. We could learn a lot

By Neil Clark

March 31, 2008 1:00 PM

Source: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/neil_clark/2008/03/a_model_democracy.html

It's a country where both of its leading supermarkets are cooperatives inspired by leftwing philosophy. The state-owned postal service runs the buses, which connect even the most remote village- in this country public transport is still run as a public service. It hasn't been involved in a war for almost 200 years and is easily the most democratic country in Europe - with the regular use of referendums. It has taken a strong line on climate change: in the most recent general election the Greens polled almost 10%. And its unofficial national motto is "One for all, all for one". Yet, the country in question is one that progressives often sneer at- and label reactionary.

I'm talking of Switzerland, which, though it lies at the heart of Europe, is one of continent's countries about which there is most ignorance.

The first myth about Switzerland is that it operates an ultra-capitalist, dogmatically free-market economic system.

Although much of the economy is in private hands, if there is a conflict of interest in Switzerland between community and capital, community always comes first. Agriculture is highly protected - receiving twice the amount of subsidy than the EU average. Swiss Federal Railways in still in public ownership. Most shops close on Saturday afternoons and all day on Sunday. In Switzerland, unlike Britain, there are still areas where commerce is not allowed to go.

A second myth is that Switzerland is a boringly bourgeois and ultra-sanitised place where no self-respecting radical would feel at home. What surprises many who visit for the first time is the country's gritty and decidedly retro feel. Switzerland is dated - but in the best possible way. You can still smoke in wonderfully atmospheric railway station restaurant/cafes (I can heartily recommend the one at Thun) - and imagine it's still 1968. For someone coming from Britain, Swiss streets have a refreshingly un-globalised look. Away from the biggest cities, big international fast food and coffee shop chains, which have made British high streets such bland, uniform places, are conspicuous by their absence. Swiss cities still have a bohemian feel: there is a thriving cultural and artistic scene.

Another myth about Switzerland is that its people are narrow-minded xenophobes. The racist anti-immigration election poster of the Swiss People's party (SVP), which showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off a Swiss flag, quite rightly led to condemnation from around the world. But less well publicised were the protests the poster sparked in Switzerland and the gains made in last year's election by the unequivocally anti-racist Green party.

Switzerland's model of direct democracy is one the left should study extremely closely. Swiss citizens may challenge a law that has been passed by parliament if they can gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days. In addition, citizens can put a constitutional amendment to a national vote, provided they get 100,000 voters to sign the proposed amendment within 18 months. Binding referendums also take place at cantonal and local level.

It's no coincidence that George Lansbury, the most socialist of all British Labour party leaders, spoke favourably of the Swiss model-and called for a similar system to be introduced in Britain.

Switzerland's commitment to democracy runs deep and explains the reluctance to hand over decision-making power to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. By maintaining its independence, Switzerland is able to follow its own path, and not be dictated to by those who act as if they rule the world. Despite warnings from the US embassy in Bern, Switzerland's energy trading company EGL earlier this month signed a 25-year-old natural gas contract with the state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company. The Swiss president and foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, defended the deal, saying, "Switzerland is an independent country that has its own strategic interests to defend". If only other European nations could show such spirit when dealing with US bullying.

Forget the jibes about cuckoo clocks and the gnomes of Zurich: Switzerland has a lot more going for it from a progressive viewpoint than many on the left realise.

Book Review: Direct Democracy in Switzerland

This book review gives a solid description of the book Direct Democracy in Switzerland and the necessity for writing it. - Editor




Direct Democracy in Switzerland

New Brunswick: Transaction Publications - 2002
by: Gregory A. Fossedal

A Review:

From the Foreword to the conclusion some 450 pages later this is a noteworthy study. I recommend it highly not only to American readers but readers globally.

Because the Preface----written by Alfred R. Berkeley III--is remarkably apt in providing a bird's eye view and germane to my assessment, it merits quoting at some length:

Great books must either tell a gripping story, impart vital information, or expose an important new idea. In. Direct Democracy in Switzerland, Gregory Fossedal has done something rare--he's done a little bit of all three.

The result is a highly readable story ... [about] the world's only 1,000 year democracy.

At the same time, Fossedal tells how one of the world's countries least blessed with physical resources has come to be, arguably, the most successful economy in the world, and how a nation with pervasive religious and linguistic divisions enjoys profound social tranquility--information that is surely important to people around the world.

Finally, Direct Democracy in Switzerland raises important issues for the future of democracy itself. In this it resembles Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which suggested the need for political freedom to a Europe straining under the dead hand of aristocrats and top-down, elite politics. For, as Fossedal notes, the Swiss democracy is very different from any other system in the world. Switzerland's direct democracy--in which the people, by initiative and referendum, wind up voting directly on a large number of policies that affect their lives--is sufficiently different that it might be called, as the former foreign editor of The Economist, Brian Beedham, once suggested, a “different system” altogether.

Certainly, democracy in Switzerland is very different in some important features than democracy in America, Asia, or the rest of Europe today. Switzerland thus may function as a kind of laboratory. It has a purity in applying the democratic idea, and it has a. long history as a functioning cluster of democracies. That history is more than four times as long as the next longest-running democracy, the United States (p. 6).

A look at the Table of Contents suggests an initial question: why devote one of the book’s five parts wholly to the history of the forming of Swiss people from the 11th century to the present? The answer: it immerses the reader immediately into a distinctive character of this study. This is a study of the Swiss people finding and developing themselves over time as a self-governing polity as much as it is about a direct democracy structure. Moreover what this history reveals about the origins of the Swiss as a democratic nation is enhanced by an abundance of vignette encounters tellingly inserted throughout derived from the author's first hand experience interviewing Swiss citizens and officials. These anecdotes reaffirm with consistency: this is a polity whose way of going about democracy is one of reasonableness, common sense...in the Information Age an idea whose time has come. Therein, Fossedal suggests a message which crescendos in the fifth and concluding part of his study: the Swiss political reality of democracy suggests what are dormant possibilities, and indeed promises in the democracies of other nations. So abundant is his evidence, it coalesce into something approximating an empirical demonstration of the following thesis:

The Swiss polity, as an historical and on-going exhibit in the exercise of deliberative direct democracy is a persuasive rebuttal to the stand of elites from the Greeks of yesterday and those of the our founding to those of today who hold that exclusionary representative democracy, in itself, is a better form of democracy than a direct democracy in partnership with representative democracy. In a word, an effective rebuttal to the stand; you can't trust the people.

I see this thesis seminally expressed in Fossedal’s statement: “Switzerland answers the potential question of the political scientist or citizen: What happens if we place so much faith in the people that we make them lawmakers?” (p. 21).

The book is laid out in five pans.

Part 1: Conception. The author begins by offering an account of his “pilgrimage”--presumably in the late nineties--on the train to the town of Schwyz where the cherished national founding document, the “Bundesbrief,” the “charter of allegiance,” the “confederation bond” entered into in 1291, is preserved. This immediately draws the reader into the story line of this study. This story aspect crops up throughout the study via the abundant face to face encounters with Swiss citizenry anecdotally described.

Part 2: History. In three relatively short chapters Fossedal covers a thousand years of Swiss history. Throughout he focuses on how the Swiss confederation formed itself through governing structures into a highly diversified self-governing nation. At first the dominant dynamic in bringing this about was more the desire of neighboring peoples to free themselves from the social and political oppression and seeing confederating with the Swiss as an escape from their political bondage. At the outset neighboring peoples backed into the Swiss confederate enclave in their quest for liberty. In later times the dominant force, Fossedal suggests, has been simply the unmistakable attraction of the Swiss model of a self-governing people. The draw of democracy which the Swiss experience exudes continues to reveal itself in the study's detailing. And in the end it adds up to a persuasive apologetic for the possibilities within democracy everywhere.

Part 3: Institutions. Here Fossedal examines the Swiss Constitution, its structure, powers and procedures; its Executive, Judiciary and Parliament as well as the procedure and operation of Referendum. The latter described in Chapter 9, is a chapter not simply to be read but studied.

Part 4 Issues. In this penultimate Part, Fossedal devotes a chapter to each of nine major issues of social and political life: education; taxes; crime; welfare; press; family; army; holocaust; and diversity. Here the reader may, without jeopardy to gaining a grasp of the over arching message of this study, move more quickly and/or pick and choose in one's reading. The over-all thrust of this fourth Part is, once again, via anecdote and reasoning, making the case that democracy which includes a structure of constitutional governance whereby the people can deliberate and legislate directly. really ‘works.’

Part 5 L’idee Suisse In the final segment of the study, Fossedal does so much more than impart information and make a ‘pitch’ to the rest of national democracies to follow the Swiss idea of democracy. Here Fossedal's study rivals the analysis, critique and prognosis of democracy done by Alexis de Tocqueville on the American democratic experiment more than a century and a half ago.

In a concluding portion of his final chapter: “The End of History and the Next Citizen” Fossedal looks to the future and wonders: who will be the first to emulate “the Swiss system”? With respect to the United States, Fossedal sees “a complete outsider” the more like possibility for enabling this advancement. He intimates it coming about by an ‘outsider’ leader among the people. This, in turn, suggests through its electorate directly amending the Constitution outside of Article V--the validity and legality of which Yale constitutional law scholar, Akhil Reed Amar, trenchantly argues. [1] This, in fact, is now beginning to transpire.

For the past decade a project to accomplish this has been underway. In 1989 Mike Gravel [2] initiated the “Philadelphia II” project as a result of pondering the creation and ratification of the U. S. Constitution. The Philadelphia convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the U. S. Constitution by the people through special ratification conventions did not involve any legislative action of the Congress or of the states. Rather it was a act of the people, albeit legitimated by actions of the Confederation Congress and Assemblies of the States, constitutionally empowered by “First Principles” as James Madison pointed out to the Maryland delegate, Charles Carroll. This “Philadelphia I” model inspires the “Philadelphia II” to bring about introduction of direct democracy in the United States in one First Principles legislative act .

In rounding out this assessment of Fossedal's study, I offer a word on the centerpiece Swiss procedure of Referendum. First, in the Swiss structure this is an umbrella term for both the procedures of Initiative and Referendum. In labelling the latter as the less-than-complete form of direct democracy procedure, I wish to underscore the fact that, formally, in all Referenda, the representative legislatures are the crafters and thus the managers of that which the people directly vote on. Not so in the latter. With an initiative, the people initiate, debate and carry the proposal to electoral finality. In a referendum, it is a mixture of representative and direct democratic action. In the case of an initiative it is more clearly affirmed that the people are committing the act of sovereignty and according to Tocqueville showing who is the “Sovereign.”

At the head of the final chapter Fossedal states:

There is little point in studying Swiss democracy unless there is something distinctive about it--and not only distinctive, but importantly distinctive. If this is a bad assumption, then Switzerland is worth thinking about only for the specialist.

The Swiss and their experience with democracy as demonstrated by Fossedal's study validates this as a sound assumption. What the author accomplishes in this study is the layout of a lesson plan for democracies of the world still locked in the undeveloped stage of democracy at arms length from the people, the real Sovereign. Following this lesson plan built on the Swiss system is the 'end of history' for democracies of the world in the 21 st century. Gregory A. Fossedal in Direct Democracy in Switzerland makes his case.

[1]There are four law journal articles which together develop a pioneering thesis of Yale professor Akhil Reed Amar concerning majority rule popular sovereignty highlighted in amendment of the Constitution outside of Article : “Of Sovereignty and Federalism,” Yale L J. Vol 96:7 (June 1987); “Philadelphia Revisited: Amending the Constitution Outside Article V, ” Univ. of Chi. L Rev., (Vol 55:4, Fall, 1988); “The Consent of the Governed: Constitutional Amendment Outside Article V” Columbia Law Rev. Vol. 94, pp. 457-508 and “The Central Meaning of Republican Government: Popular Sovereignty, Majority Rule, and the Denominator Problem,” Univ. of Colo. Law Rev. Vol. 65, 1994, pp. 749-786.

[2] Former two term U. S. Senator (Alaska) 1969-81

Source:http://ni4d.org/library/fossedal_direct_democracy_in_switzerland.htm


The following website provides some basic information that can help one understand the reason for writing the book - direct democracy is flourishing in Switzerland!
http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/

And to read the book yourself please see:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=MSVary9Nf2wC&dq=direct+democracy+in+switzerland&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ZabAm69ZvF&sig=Ju2xVCIXgWZA-Y2tdqGDosc1xew#PPP1,M1

Direct Democracy in Switzerland - Since 1291?

Direct democracy is by no means alien to the western world as we have already pointed out in relation to the institutions of direct democracy that are practiced at the state and local level in the U.S.A. , and Switzerland is arguably the western nation where it has been practiced for the longest time and on the broadest scale. The Swiss are very proud of their direct democracy, and there is a lot we can learn from it's history and development in order to visualize how such a system could and should be implemented here in the U.S.A. - Editor






To learn more about Switzerland's fascinating direct democratic system visit this site:

http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/


And also view this very interesting government video presentation on the subject:

http://www.swissworld.org/dvd_rom/direct_democracy_2005/index.html

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