The Swiss Republic

by Boyd Winchester

6. For federal laws, decrees, and resolutions, the consent of both Councils is necessary. Federal laws shall be submitted for acceptance or rejection by the people upon the demand of thirty thousand qualified voters, or of eight Cantons. The same principle applies to federal resolutions, which have a general application, and which are not of an urgent nature.

7. The Confederation shall by law establish the forms and times of popular voting.

8. Members of either Council vote without instructions.

9. The Councils deliberate separately. But in the case of the elections (specified in Section 2), of pardons, or of deciding a conflict of jurisdiction, the two Councils meet in joint session, under the direction of the President of the National Council. Votes shall be decided by simple majority of the members of both Councils, present and voting.

10. Measures may originate in either Council, and may be introduced by any member of each Council.

11. The sittings of both Councils shall, as a rule, be public.

The law-making department in any sovereign state is the repository of most power; consequently the constitution of Switzerland, like that of the United States, after enumerating the powers which shall be exercised by authority of the general government, confers them in terms upon the most immediate representative of the sovereignty. In Switzerland this is the Federal Assembly; in the United States it is Congress. The scope of powers conferred upon the Swiss Federal Assembly enables it to exercise not only legislative, but supervisory, executive, and judicial functions. The separation of its powers from those of the Federal Council and the Federal Tribunal—the executive and judicial departments—is neither clearly set forth nor in practice is it strictly observed. Cases have occurred, the jurisdiction over which being involved in so much doubt, the interested parties, from abundance of caution, submitted their memorials simultaneously to two of these federal departments. The Swiss Federal Assembly exercises a power more comprehensive and greater than that given probably to any legislative body; at least in a republic, where there is a professed organic distribution of the three great heads. It elects the Federal Executive, Federal Judiciary, and the Commander of the Army. It is the final arbiter on all questions as to the respective jurisdiction of the Executive and the Federal Court. It would appear that there is no decision of the Executive which cannot be revised by it. It is the chief power in the land. No veto can intervene nor any judicial power question the constitutionality of its statutes. Its acts form the law which the court must execute. The Swiss people, as it were, speak in each legislative enactment; and the only check or revision to which it is amenable rests with the people themselves by means of the Referendum. The authority of the Swiss Assembly, it is true, exceeds that of the Congress of the United States, and yet it may be regarded as a weaker body. For while in each case there lies in the background a legislative sovereign, capable of controlling the action of the ordinary legislature, the sovereign power is far more easily brought into play in Switzerland than in the United States. Again, every ordinary law passed by the Swiss Assembly may be annulled by a popular vote. The freedom from instruction secured to the members of the Federal Assembly was first declared in the Swiss Constitution of 1848. The whole history of the representative principle proves the soundness of the doctrine, that the vesting an entire discretion in the representative is an essential part of the definition. It is not to the power of instructing the representative that constituents are to look for an assurance that his efforts will be faithfully applied to the public service; but it is to the power of reducing him from the elevation to which their suffrages have raised him. The object to be obtained is not to compel the representative to decide agreeably to the opinions of his constituents, for that would be compelling him often to decide against his better judgment; but it is to force him to decide with a single view to the public good. It is by leaving him unshackled with positive instructions, while he is subject to the ultimate tribunal of the opinion of his constituents, that the end in view is to be accomplished of bringing into action, in the proceedings of the legislature, the greatest practicable quantity of intelligence under the guidance of the purest disposition to promote the welfare of the community. The view which Burke takes of the relation between a representative and his constituents is in the main so correct, and is so luminously expressed, that no one can read it without pleasure and instruction. The passage occurs in his celebrated speech at Bristol on the conclusion of the poll. “Certainly, gentlemen,” he says, “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions to theirs; and above all, ever and in all cases to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his matured judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Neither the Constitution of the United States, nor that of Switzerland, vests anywhere any power of dissolution of the legislative body. The Swiss Assembly is chosen for a definite time; when that time is up it dissolves by the operation of the law; before that time is up no power can lawfully dissolve it.

Either the National Council or Council of States can recommend to the Federal Council that it shall prepare and present for its consideration certain bills; or a member can suggest one to his own House, and, if agreeable, the matter will be referred to the Federal Council with instruction to draft the necessary bill; or the Federal Council itself presents bills upon its own initiative. The Assembly recommends to the Federal Council by motions, called postulats, such alterations or reform in bills submitted by it as seem to them to be proper. If the Federal Council does not assent to a particular postulat coming from one of the Houses, it makes a report to that effect to the House, and if the latter insists upon its view, then a formal proposition is drawn up, and if carried in both Houses, the Federal Council is bound to execute its provisions. It must be understood that every bill must pass through the hands of the Federal Council, and by it laid before the Assembly. When a bill is presented by the Federal Council, the House, which has first to take it up, appoints a committee to examine and report upon it. These committees or commissions are appointed as the occasion arises,—there being no standing committees,—by the President of the House and the scrutateurs; constituting together what is called a bureau. These scrutateurs, four in the National Council and two in the Council of States, are elected every session from the members of their respective Houses; and it is also their duty to determine and to announce the result, whenever a vote is had, either by ballot, division, or viva voce; they occupy an elevated position to the right of the President. On the submission of a committee’s report, the bill is discussed, and ultimately either passed with or without amendments, or rejected. If passed, it goes to the other House, where a similar process is undergone. When passed by both Houses it becomes law, and is published as such by the Federal Council in the Feuille fédérale Suisse; subject, however, to the Referendum, if duly demanded. The Federal Council, in publishing a law, decree, or resolution not subject to the Referendum, fixes the date when it shall go into force, if this is not done in the text of the bill. Generally, this date is the day of publication. For all measures liable to the Referendum, what is termed délai d’opposition is named, being a period of three months, during which the appeal to the popular vote can be demanded. In case of no appeal being taken, the law goes into force after the expiration of the three months.

The daily sittings of the Assembly open at eight o’clock in the morning during the June session, and nine o’clock during the December session; the adjournments are usually from one to two o’clock P.M. The sessions never extend beyond three weeks. It requires from the federal treasury a small sum to defray the entire annual cost of the Assembly. In the legislative appropriation bill for 1889 the following sums were provided for the compensation of the two Houses of the Assembly: Ständerath, salaries and mileage of committees, 10,000 francs; salary and mileage of translator, 3000 francs; service, 2500 francs; total, 15,500 francs; Nationalrath, salaries and mileage of members and members of committees, 200,000 francs; translator, 3000 francs; service, 3000 francs; total, 206,000 francs. So the entire outlay of the country for its legislative department for the year was 221,500 francs, or about $44,000; one thousand dollars less than is annually paid to nine members of Congress.