Source: https://spacezilotes.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/demos-cratos-is-one-en-%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD-c/
Timestamp: 2017-06-25 10:26:00
Document Index: 545259818

Matched Legal Cases: ['art. 43', 'art. 43', 'art. 45', 'art. 53', 'art. 3', 'art. 137', 'art. 79', 'art. 51', 'art. 92']

DEMOS CRATOS IS ONE-EN-один (C)	Posted on January 18, 2015	by sooteris kyritsis (BEING CONTINUED FROM 06/05/14) 2 Constitutional Changes between 1997 and 2003The time span between 1997 and 2003 appears to have been a period favoring the adoption ofnew constitutions. Table 2.1 displays a list of all 26 cantons and their constitutional changesthat affect those direct democratic institutions on which the index of direct democracy isbased (state: 18th of August, 2004). The cantons FR, SH, SG, GR, TI, VD, and NE – aboutone fourth of all Swiss cantons – all passed new, totally revised constitutions between 1997and 2004 (the canton of LU is also currently drafting a new constitution, which should bevoted upon in 200745). The reason for this ‘clustering’ could lie both in a “Year 2000” effectcombined with a “200-years jubilee” effect of membership in the Swiss federation, whichemerged from a confederation of single independent states. However, not all of these newconstitutions necessarily brought about alterations in the existing direct democraticinstitutions: some of the new constitutions aimed primarily at rewriting the outdatednineteenth-century wording and giving it a more modern structure without altering its legalcontent. The rest of this section is devoted to an assessment of the amendments in theconstitutional stipulations.With respect to the mandatory and optional statutory referendum, there is a weakening of thedirect democratic institution through a shift of the political power from the electorate towardthe cantonal parliament. Quite often, the application of the mandatory statutory referendumhas been restricted by the inclusion of a majority requirement of the cantonal parliament in theconstitution (SO, BL, SH, AG) or by restriction of the issues to be regulated through legalstipulation (GL)46. Alternatively, the mandatory statutory referendum has been completelyabolished and replaced by an optional statutory referendum, as happened in four cantons (ZH,OW, AR, GR (2004)). In general, such changes lead to a decline in the index of directdemocracy in these cantons. Looking at the development of the statutory initiative and the constitutional initiative, threeinteresting changes should be noted. First, more and more cantons list these two existing typesof initiatives under the identical heading in their constitution in order to group them togetherand indicate them as two possible variations of a people’s initiative. This integration isparticularly true for most of the new constitutions, and is part of a trend to make constitutionsmore transparent to the average citizen. In the old constitutions, the description of the people’srights was subject to a strict constitutional structure that reflected the organization of the stateas understood in the nineteenth century. Traditionally, revisions of the constitution (includingrevisions initiated by the people) were given a separate chapter in the back part of theconstitution, not only symbolically almost outside the daily law-making process. The statutoryinitiative, in contrast, was placed in the middle, linked to the legislative process. For thisreason, integrating both initiatives under one heading constitutes not only a formal change butindicates a change in the underlying philosophy and understanding of the purpose of aconstitution.Linked to this change is a second phenomenon: the introduction of the unitary initiative(Einheitsinitiative) (e.g. in St. Gallen art. 43 of the new constitution), which also aims to makeit easier for the citizens to influence the legislative process. The unitary initiative is a bindingmotion of the electorate for which no specific legal form is required. During the readings(Lesungen) for the new cantonal constitution in St. Gallen, the introduction of theEinheitsinitiative was under hot debate and the most important aspects of this institution werenamed (PROTOCOL 2000, PROTOCOL 2000a). According to the various speakers, theadvantages of this new type of initiative are that it is relatively easy to carry out and that it isthe legislative organ and not the initiator who decides whether a change in cantonal law or incantonal constitution is the appropriate (re)action. This latter means that unitary initiatives canno longer be turned down on the formal ground that the wrong level of law-making had beenchosen by the initiators, e.g. the proposal of a change in cantonal law when an amendment ofthe constitution would have been correct and vice versa. Additionally, the Einheitsinitiativeallows the development of the cantonal law and the constitution in a juristically consistent andsystematic way.Nevertheless, the Einheitsinitiative should not be seen as a perfect substitute for the traditionalinitiatives, because it serves purely as a device to induce the cantonal parliament to becomeactive. Both statutory and constitutional initiatives are viewed as stronger instruments than theEinheitsinitiative because both the legal level of application and the content of the change are precisely specified. Moreover, the Einheitsinitiative serves as a mere suggestion of the electorate, and the cantonal parliament can decide whether to follow it or not. If the parliament decides against, a referendum must be held. If it decides in favor and passes a law,this law is then subject to the optional statutory referendum. If a constitutional change ischosen, the cantonal people again have the final say in a popular vote. Overall, some speakersin the cantonal parliament of St. Gallen pointed out, a hierarchy of types of initiatives can beconstrued in which the unitary initiative is at the lowest level of influence. Because of thishierarchy of initiatives, differences in the signature requirements appear justified. There are,however, cantonal constitutions in which no differentiation is made between the number ofsignatures required for the unitary versus the statutory initiative48.The third phenomenon linked to the initiative but also to the fiscal referendum is that moreand more cantons tend to regulate the time period for collecting signatures or the financialthreshold in the constitution itself and not in a cantonal law on political rights of its citizenry.The advantage of this development could be increased transparency because now allrequirements concerning one institution are laid down in the same legal act. Anotheradvantage, depending on whether a mandatory statutory referendum exists in a canton or not,might be that a change in constitution must be approved by the electorate through amandatory referendum49, whereas an alteration of a cantonal law might only be subject to anoptional statutory referendum. In this latter situation, political economic theory predicts thatlarger deviations from the median voter’s preferences will occur than in the former (FELD andKIRCHGÄSSNER 2001). On the other hand, again depending on whether differences existregarding the signature requirements for a statutory or constitutional initiative, it might havebecome more difficult for the electorate to change that requirement if regulated in aconstitution. In political practice, however, between 1980 and 1998, time periods forcollection or financial thresholds, whether regulated by a law or the constitution, were rarelychanged over time. Additionally, for all cantons during our investigation period, regulation ata new, higher level of lawmaking failed to bring about a different (shorter) time period forsignature collection. Table 1 provides information on how the index changed between 1996 (as found in STUTZER,1999) and 2003 (based on own calculations). A more detailed discussion on such change isprovided in section 7 of this chapter. It must also be noted that not all institutional changesautomatically cause a change in the index of direct democracy: index points are awardedbased on ranges of signature requirements or financial thresholds so that relatively smallalterations do not necessarily translate into a change in category. In addition, the readershould keep in mind that each institution influences the composite index by only 25%: e.g. thechange in signature requirement in Basel-Land (BL) for the optional statutory referendumcaused a total change of just about 0.21 index points. At this point, I would like to emphasizethat because the index is constructed on a yearly basis, revisions of the cantonal constitutionbecoming effective after April 1st are always counted as changes in the index of thesubsequent year. Therefore, if a cantonal electorate approves a revision in September 1997,becoming effective the same date, it is the index value of the subsequent year 1998 that willbe adapted accordingly. Moreover, it is also possible that several, contrasting institutionalchanges – either occurring simultaneously or subsequent to each other – might cause acompensating impact on the index of direct democracy. Finally, it should be noted thatchanges in the index can occur even if the institutional requirements do not change: suchchanges happen because some evaluations use per capita values, meaning that fluctuations inpopulation often lead to a change in category.
During the time period under investigation, the people of St. Gallen also adopted a newconstitution in 2002, which took effect on the 1st of January, 2003. This new constitutionbrought about decisive changes for the statutory and constitutional initiatives. Overall,launching an initiative seems to have become more difficult under the new regulation.Specifically, in the new constitution, the time for collecting signatures was fixed at 5 monthsfor either initiative (for reasons of ‘harmonization’53) and the number of signatures was raisedsubstantially (from 4,000 to 6,000) for the statutory and maintained at 8,000 for theconstitutional initiative, respectively. Hence, the time requirement has become stricter for theconstitutional initiative but more relaxed for the statutory one. As a consequence, thesubindex for the constitutional initiative stayed the same54, but the subindex for the statutoryinitiative declined from 4 points down to 3.66 points. One new feature in this constitution isthe introduction of the so-called Einheitsinitiative (unitary initiative), which is easier to launchin comparison to a traditional statutory or constitutional initiative (4,000 signatures in 5months, art. 43, 1 CC and art. 45 CC). The advantages and disadvantages of this kind ofinitiative have already been described in the previous section. As a final change, the minimumtime gap between passing a new law and starting a new initiative appears to have been erasedin the new constitution. Neither the unitary initiative nor the change in minimum time gap isreflected in the subindex for the statutory initiative.Like many other cantonal people, the citizens of Graubünden also opted for a newconstitution, which became effective on the 1st of January, 2004, but which is outside thescope of this investigation. The new stipulations brought about a rise in the people’sempowerment through a decrease in the number of signatures necessary for a constitutionalinitiative (from 5,000 signatures down to 4,000). This development should be well reflected ina higher value of the subindex of the constitutional initiative (from 4.333 up to 4.666).Regarding the statutory initiative, however, the old requirements remained unchanged at3,000 signatures. For both initiatives, the time for collecting signatures is set at one year in acantonal law (art. 53c, 1 GPR), which has remained unaltered since 1962.Also counted among the new cantonal constitutions has to be that of the Italian-speakingcanton of Tessin, which was adopted in December 1997 and became effective on the 1st ofJanuary, 1998. Regarding both constitutional and statutory initiatives, no changes areobservable in the constitutional stipulations. The sole observed change is that the time period available for collection is now regulated at the constitutional level and not (exclusively) through a cantonal law (art. 3, 3 LIRR for the old constitution; art. 137, 1 LEDP since 1 Jan, 1999). Hence, the index of direct democracy is unaffected. As the number of signatures forlaunching a constitutional initiative is significantly higher than the number necessary for astatutory one (10,000 vs. 7,000), it is now more difficult for the people to induce a change inthe requirement of the time period for collection than prior to the new constitution. At thispoint, it should be noted that the information in T/S 1999, p. 343, on the signaturerequirement for the statutory initiative in the proposed constitution does not reflect thenumber actually set in the new constitution.The canton Waadt also experienced the introduction of a new constitution, which entered intoforce on the 1st of September, 2003. As in many other cases, however, only small institutionalchanges were introduced through this process. The time period for collecting signatures foreither initiative was increased from 3 months to 4 months (art. 79, 2 CC)55; however, thenumber of signatures was augmented to 18,000 for a total revision of the constitution butstayed the same for the partial revision and the statutory initiative. Since the index of directdemocracy does not take into account a total revision of the constitution (which occurs lessthan once in a human lifetime on average), it is not affected by that latter change.Nevertheless, the subindices for either initiative should increase from 2004 onwards. Inaddition, as in many other cantons and in contrast to the old legal setup, the time period forcollecting signatures is now regulated at the constitutional level. As, however, therequirements for changing a cantonal law and amending the constitution are identical inWaadt, regulating such an issue in the constitution does not weaken the institution-settingpower of the people. The old regulatory setup facilitated, in theory, changes by the parliamentto their advantage because cantonal laws were then subject only to an optional statutoryreferendum. The cantonal parliament, however, has never abused its power in the pastbecause, in political practice, the stipulation of 3 months has remained unchanged, at leastsince 197856.Finally, the people of Neuenburg also totally revised their old constitution and voted on a newone on the 16th of October, 2001, which took effect on the 1st of January, 2002. In the new constitution, the stipulations are more transparently and logically structured, but this did not cause a change in the institutional setup for either initiative. Therefore, the two subindices of the statutory and the constitutional initiatives remain unchanged. Additionally in this case, therequirement of the time period, originally solely regulated in the cantonal law on politicalrights (LDP), became part of the constitutional provisions. (TO BE CONTINUED) Justina AnastasiaValerie Fischerfrom DeutschlandApproved on the application of Prof. Dr. Gebhard Kirchgässner and Prof. Dr. Simon Hug DISSERTATION /2005of the University of St.GallenGraduate School of Business Administration,Economics, Law and Social Sciences (HSG) to obtain the title of Doctor of Economics NOTES 45 See http://www.neueverfassung.lu.ch (7/10/2004) and personal communication with Mr. ZEMP (20/04/2005).46 In case the majority restriction serves only as a means for disciplining the cantonal parliament, the introductionof such a majority restriction has to be regarded as equivalent to a de facto elimination of the mandatoryreferendum. Only observation of the daily political usage over a longer period of time can provide a basis fora correct evaluation of this institution. 47 The value of ZÜRICH has been corrected. See section 7 of this chapter.
48 Because of its potentially low level of political influence and because it only complements the existingtraditional initiatives, the Einheitsinitiative does not (yet) form part of the index of direct democracy. Only thefuture will show how important the institution becomes to the daily political process and whether it should beincluded in the index construction or not.49 As required by art. 51, 1 SC, see also section 1. 50 CC stands for cantonal constitution.
51 As well as of the mandatory statutory referendum – see section 4.52 According to Mr. DÜRST, Ratsschreiber in the Regierungskanzlei of Glarus, in practice this restriction wasonly carried out to solve an academic battle over whether all executions of federal laws needed to be based ona so-called cantonal introductory law (‘Einführungsgesetz’) that would, under the old constitution, have beensubject to a mandatory referendum. In political practice, he claims, no restriction of direct democratic rightswas caused by this amendment in May 2002. 53 See PROTOCOL 1 and PROTOCOL 2.54 As the index is constructed, both 180 and 150 days of time for collection fall in the same category. 55 The new constitutional stipulation contradicts the time limit laid down in the cantonal law on political rights(art. 92, 1 LEDP). The Grand Conseil of Waadt, however, amended this law on the 5th of April, 2005. Thisrevision will come into force after a delay of 40 days if the electorate of Waadt does not carry out a statutoryreferendum to overrule this change.56 See T/S 1999, p. 375 cont. for an account of the institutional development of the initiative.