Signature collections to continue as planned
Published: Friday, Sep 13th 2024, 14:50
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No follow-up checks and suspension of pending initiatives and referendums: Ongoing signature collections should continue as planned. The Federal Council refrains from taking drastic emergency measures following the discovery of suspected cases of fraud.
The Federal Council announced on Friday that there are no plans to suspend pending initiatives or check the signatures of petitions that have been submitted but have not yet been put to the vote. "Both would be legally problematic and would result in political uncertainty."
"To date, there is no reliable evidence that referendums have only come about thanks to forged signatures," the Federal Council stated. It thus supports the Federal Chancellery's analysis and proposals.
"Conditions for emergency law not fulfilled"
The authorities also lacked the legal basis for both suspending the processing of popular initiatives and for the subsequent verification of signatures, the state government wrote. "The conditions for creating the appropriate basis by emergency law have not been met."
According to the Federal Council, follow-up checks would require a random follow-up survey of those people whose signatures for a popular initiative have been certified by the municipality and counted as valid by the Federal Chancellery. "Such follow-up checks would be of limited informative value."
According to the state government, they would also be problematic in terms of state policy because they would severely delay and call into question the process of dealing with the currently pending popular initiatives, which is subject to statutory deadlines. The National Council's Political Institutions Committee (SPK-N) also spoke out against the subsequent verification of signatures a week ago.
Further measures are likely to follow
Direct democratic instruments and processes should be preserved and not restricted, the Federal Council continued. Instead, the Federal Council wants to counter unfair practices in the collection of signatures for referendums with criminal prosecution, prevention and improved processes.
According to the press release, the Federal Chancellery will soon be convening a round table. The parties, associations, committees, collection organizations and authorities involved in collecting and checking signatures are to analyze the current processes and specify possible measures to prevent abuse.
"One of the goals is to develop efficient and pragmatic standards that the players themselves undertake to comply with," the Federal Council continued. In this way, transparency could be quickly created as to where signatures come from and by whom and how they were collected. There is currently no legal basis for the introduction of mandatory transparency measures.
Affair spreads
According to the Federal Council, cooperation with the scientific community should also be sought in order to examine the possibility of technical solutions that could better protect signature collections against abuse and fraud.
The suspected cases of allegedly forged signatures and unfair practices in signature collections were made public by a Tamedia investigation at the beginning of September. Commercial companies are alleged to have cheated when collecting signatures for popular initiatives.
Just over a week after the first reports, the affair took on a new twist at the beginning of this week: according to the Federal Chancellery, certain organizations that collect signatures for money are said to have done so without a mandate and urged committees to purchase these unordered signatures. It did not name the organizations, but informed committees of popular initiatives and referendums in the collection stage and assured them of support.
Political reappraisal
The Office of the Attorney General is investigating the "signature scandal" referred to by various media. The role of the Federal Chancellery is the subject of the investigations initiated by the Control Committee of the Council of States (CPC-S). It wants to know whether and how the Federal Chancellery performed its duties.
The National Council's State Policy Committee (SPK-N) in turn invited the large chamber's Control Committee to take a closer look at the case. It also discussed proposals for amendments to the law, but rejected them for the time being. The various criminal investigations should be awaited first.
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