Wed, Oct 18th 2023
The initiative wants to give precedence to the Federal Constitution over international law.
No international agreement should violate the rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. The civic movements Friends of the Constitution, Mass-Voll and Aufrecht Schweiz have launched a popular initiative together with the Pirate Party and SVP parliamentarians.
The popular initiative “For the effective protection of constitutional rights (Sovereignty Initiative)” has been reviewed by the Federal Chancellery, according to Tuesday’s Federal Gazette. The initiative committee now has 18 months to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures.
The leader of the committee is Nicolas Rimoldi, president of Mass-Voll – an association founded during the Corona pandemic and notable for three successful signature collections on the Covid-19 law.
The initiative committee includes several parliamentarians from the SVP parliamentary group, as well as cantonal and municipal politicians of other political persuasions. “The initiative is neither left nor right,” Rimoldi said.
According to its authors, the goal of the sovereignty initiative is to guarantee citizens consistent protection of their constitutional rights as well as to defend Switzerland’s sovereignty. “Switzerland first,” Rimoldi told the media in Bern.
“International organizations should no longer intervene directly in the lives of people in Switzerland,” said Roland Bühlmann, co-president of the Friends of the Constitution. While Switzerland is not an island, he said, it must distinguish whether an international treaty is cooperation or just a surrender of rights and powers. “Any surrender of rights weakens civil rights.”
According to the text of the initiative, Switzerland may not enter into any obligations under international law which oblige the law-making, law-enforcing or judicial authorities of the Confederation, cantons or municipalities to impinge the protection of fundamental rights or other constitutional rights. Moreover, Swiss authorities and courts may not submit to the application of the law or jurisdiction of foreign actors.
According to the text of the initiative, if an obligation under international law contradicts these requirements and if no improvements could be achieved through negotiations, Switzerland must terminate the treaty without delay or withdraw from the relevant international organization or supranational community.
Excluded from the initiative are the Human Rights Convention, treaties on legal assistance, on the movement of persons, on free trade, on the right of asylum and non-military sanctions of the UN as well as mandatory provisions of international law. Excluded from the “foreign judges” are the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
According to another new constitutional article, only federal laws and international treaties whose approval resolution has been subject to a referendum would be authoritative for Swiss courts. All existing international treaties would have to be reviewed for their conformity with the fundamental rights contained in the Federal Constitution.
If adopted by the people and the cantons, the constitutional articles would become directly applicable to all existing and future provisions of the Constitution as well as to all existing and future obligations of the Confederation, cantons and municipalities under international law.
“The initiative has an absolute and all-encompassing effect, radical and for all time,” Rimoldi said. A paradigm shift is needed, he said. “The people must be the boss again.”
©Keystone/SDA
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