Federal charter
The federal charter of December 15, 1832, also known as the Rossi Plan , was a draft revision of the federal treaty of 1815 . It was an important milestone in the constitutional history ( Federal Constitution ) of modern Switzerland on its way to becoming a federal state in 1848.
Historical development
The Federal Diet of July 17, 1832 in Lucerne commissioned a commission headed by Gallus Jakob Baumgartner to revise the federal treaty, which had been requested by the majority of the cantons since 1831. MEP Pellegrino Rossi from Geneva was appointed rapporteur and drafted the draft that bears his name. The draft was signed by the Revision Commission on December 15, 1832. Rossi defended the draft at the Tagsatzung in Zurich in May 1833, where he encountered general opposition from the cantons: it was too centralistic in Neuchâtel , Basel-Stadt and the Waldstätten , it went too little for the radicals , and it was too much for others Works of the French cantons.
The Diet decided to revise the draft by a Diet Commission appointed in March 1833. The second, revised draft was adopted by the assembly on May 15, 1833 and submitted to the cantons for voting. After it had only been accepted by ten cantons, a negative referendum in Lucerne on July 7th, 1833 led to the provisional failure of the revision project.
“ It would be wrong to measure interest in Swiss history according to the size of the country. This small country occupies a very important place in the history of modern European constitutional life. Each canton has given a field for political experiments, and since each unites the various conditions of language, religion, territorial expansion, and economic life in a special way, the experiments were carried out under manifoldly varied conditions. This story is recommended to anyone who wants to understand the development of modern democratic society as the most instructive collection of practical examples for the application of the principle of popular sovereignty. "
Content of the federal document
The draft of the federal charter, which comprised 120 articles, provided for an actual regeneration of the Confederation. In addition to the preamble, it was divided into the three sections General Provisions, Federal Authorities (Diet, Federal Council, Federal Chancellery, Federal Court, Seat of Federal Authorities ) and Revision of the Federal Document.
The 22 sovereign cantons should unite to form an indissoluble federal state, the Swiss Confederation (Art. 1). In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity , the cantons should exercise all rights that are not expressly transferred to federal authority. (Art. 2). The purpose of the Confederation should be the promotion of the common welfare of the Confederates, the protection of their rights and freedoms , the preservation of the independence and neutrality of the fatherland. (Art. 3). The federation alone should have the right to declare war and make peace, to enter into alliances and international treaties. (Art. 11).
In addition to the compulsory military service (art. 30) should be considered as fundamental rights to equality before the law , the exercise of political rights according to representative and democratic forms (Art. 6), the free movement of persons and goods (Art. 14), the freedom of establishment (Article . 36) and the freedom to petition (Art. 37) are introduced.
In the institutional area, a modern federal state was sought. The federal assembly was to be converted into a parliament that decided according to the free will of the majority of its members (Art. 43–67). An executive with a five-member Federal Council and a Landammann of Switzerland as President (Art. 68–86) and a Federal Supreme Court (Art. 90–104) were planned. Customs (Art. 15), post (Art. 26) and currency (Art. 27) should be centralized, measurements and weights standardized and replaced by a decimal system (Art. 28).
literature
- Alfred Kölz : Modern Swiss constitutional history. Its basic lines from the end of the Old Confederation to 1848. Stämpfli, Bern 1992, ISBN 3-7272-9380-2 .
- William E. Rappard : Trois économistes genevois et la révision du Pacte fédéral de 1815. 1941.
- Alfred Dufour: Homage to Pellegrino Rossi. Helbing Lichtenhahn, Basel 1998, ISBN 978-3-7190-1764-4 .
- Romeo Astorri: Da Peter Ochs a Pellegrino Rossi: le costituzioni dal 1798 al 1834. In: Bollettino storico della Svizzera italiana (BSSI). Bellinzona 2002, pp. 143-159
- Alexis Keller: Libéralisme et démocratie dans la pensée politique de Pellegrino Rossi et d'Antoine-Elysée Cherbuliez. In: Un liberale europeo: Pellegrino Rossi (1787–1848). Giuffre, Milan 2001.