Revival: Real Democracy in Operation: The Example of Switzerland (1920) by Felix Bonjour

Author:Felix Bonjour [Bonjour, Felix]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: European, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781351337953
Google: PepGDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38641193
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

VI

The Popular Initiative

THE referendum either confirms or destroys. The initiative reverses or constructs and results sometimes in strange disturbances in the constitutional and legislative edifice. But what is this right of popular initiative? In Switzerland the term is applied to the right of a section of the people to bring forward a proposal of a constitutional, legislative or administrative character for the decision of the sovereign electorate. As soon as the proposal is supported by the number of signatures fixed by law, the popular vote must take place. In this respect, the initiative is distinguished from the simple petition, upon which Councils are not compelled to take action. The initiative has this much in common with the optional referendum: a fairly considerable number of signatures must be collected to set it in motion. But it differs from both types of the referendum in that it creates a new right. With the referendum, the co-operation of the people in the business of legislation is of a quasi-passive character; with the initiative it is an active and directing force. The proposal originates with the people, or at least with a fraction of the people, and if approved by a majority of the electoral body it becomes from that moment part of the law or the constitution on an equal footing with bills voted by the Chambers. While the referendum adds nothing to the rights of peoples which possess the initiative, the initiative extends the rights of those which possess the referendum only: in the majority of cantons, it permits decisions of the Great Council to be attacked which are beyond the scope of the referendum.

The initiative, however, is not exercised by the people entirely without the co-operation of the representative councils. Almost always the latter have the right to give their opinion upon popularly initiated proposals and to oppose counter-proposals of their own, if they so desire. With the referendum, the people is deemed to give its opinion, explicitly or implicitly, upon all the important actions of the Councils; with the initiative, the people intervenes only in exceptional cases in order to modify or to complete legislation. Like the referendum, the initiative has remarkable consequences. It impels Councils to pass laws or take action upon which they would not agree but for fear of the initiative in their rear. The initiative also has the special virtue of setting a term to serious conflicts which may arise between the people and its rulers. Nowadays, the initiative suffices to settle a dispute which formerly would have ended in revolution—as, for example, the case of a government obstinately maintaining a system of electoral units which falsifies the expression of the national will [4 jerry-mandering’]. The right of initiative, gained after untold efforts by parliamentary assemblies, has bccome in Switzerland a right of the people, and the use which the Swiss people has made of it is not a condemnation of the institution.

The right of popular initiative applies in Switzerland both to the Constitution and to

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