Direct democracy in the canton of Zurich
The direct democracy in the canton of Zurich formed in the 19th century with the expansion of people's rights to state and municipal level and the concretization of popular sovereignty . The new constitution of the Canton of Zurich from 1869 was the first in Switzerland in which direct democracy was systematically implemented.
Resistance tradition for a just rule
Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 (Switzerland's independence from the German Empire), Zurich no longer referred to itself as the “Imperial City of Zurich”, but as the “Republic of Zurich”. In 1713, pressure from the guilds and the rural population led to a constitutional revision. In spite of this, the city's regiment remained effective in the countryside through numerous mandates that regulated the religious and moral life of the subjects down to the last detail and gave the city a monopoly in the economic field.
In 1794 the Stäfner Memorial was drawn up, in which the documented rights of the Zurich rural population of the pre- and post-Reformation period were referred to, which were described as “old freedoms” in Waldmann's letters of 1489 and the Kappel letters of 1532 (the city had committed itself , without the knowledge and will of their countrymen not to conclude any alliances). With this petition to the city council, they demanded a constitution, equality for all citizens, freedom of trade and education, the replacement of feudal burdens and the restoration of the old municipal rights. Before the petition could be submitted, the council had the leaders of the movement arrested and sentenced. The government's intransigence and the penalties mobilized the entire countryside and the city, where enlightened citizens demanded reforms based on the French model ( Stäfner Handel ).
The march of the French troops into the Old Confederation in 1798 intensified the revolutionary mood among the rural upper class (Seegemeinden, Knonauer Amt, Zürcher Oberland). The radical leader of the landscape, the Stäfner Johann Kaspar Pfenninger , forced the resignation of the council. A national commission, composed mostly of landscape representatives, began to work out a constitution, but on March 29, 1798, it had to submit to the Helvetic constitution dictated by France. This meant the end of the Republic of Zurich and its area became the Canton of Zurich and an administrative district of the Helvetic Republic .
Since the city of Zurich had lost its dominant role over the Helvetic landscape, it wanted to enforce its claims based on the mediation constitution again. She demanded an oath of homage to the new cantonal constitution and the authorities. In the buck war of 1804 the rural population defended themselves militarily victorious but otherwise unsuccessfully against the new laws. With the restoration constitution of 1814, Zurich returned to the Grand Council of the Ancien Régime .
The 1831 Constitution
The July Revolution of 1830 in France supported regeneration in Switzerland . At the beginning of the 19th century, 88 percent of the population in the canton of Zurich lived in the countryside, where they worked in agriculture and in the first factories. The factories were built in the countryside because there was cheap hydropower and sufficient labor. Because the landscape could not have a say in politics, the liberal movement (bourgeoisie and manufacturers) initiated decisive political change processes with organized popular assemblies.
On November 22nd, 1830, around 10,000 men from the Zurich countryside gathered for the first time in Uster ( Ustertag ) and demanded a new constitution with the “Memorial of Uster”. Because of their increased economic strength, they finally wanted to have adequate representation in parliament. Businessmen and farmers demanded protection from the government for the guilds as well as for small and micro-enterprises and a relief in the relief of their feudal burdens ( tithe ). The demands of the popular movement led to the dissolution of the parliament (Grand Council), which scheduled new elections on December 6th according to the required principle of representation. A commission of 13 worked out a draft constitution with popular sovereignty as the supreme state principle. The constitution strengthened the municipalities and gave them the right to their own municipal regulations within the framework of cantonal law.
The new, liberal constitution adopted by the people on March 20, 1831 in the first cantonal vote with 96 percent of the voters came into force three days later. The canton of Zurich became a sovereign state of the Swiss Confederation with a representative constitution .
The liberals began with an educational offensive (Education Act of 1832, foundation of the democratic elementary school, the teachers' college and the University of Zurich ) and the renewal of the church, because popular sovereignty could only be exercised by an educated people. For the growing economy, the customs barriers were dismantled, the road and bridge tariffs lifted and the road construction stepped up.
The liberal awakening with modernization disregarded old traditional rights of the rural population. The new social order benefited entrepreneurs, lawyers and teachers while small farmers, homeworkers and the old elites were the losers. The introduction of new school books with non-religious content and the appointment of David Friedrich Strauss to the University ( Straussenhandel ) triggered the march of 2,000 angry and armed rural residents to Zurich. The Zurich coup of September 6, 1839 overthrew the liberal cantonal government.
Democratic movement in the canton of Zurich
With the industrialization of Switzerland , the city of Zurich experienced strong economic growth and was expanded to become a transport hub. The city was privileged over the landscape. Farmers and tradespeople struggled to get loans because the wealthy preferred to invest their money in the new railroad shares rather than in the rural economy. The Grand Council rejected a bank for the people several times.
In the 1840s and 1850s a left-liberal and early socialist movement had formed, led by Johann Jakob Treichler and Karl Bürkli . Treichler and Bürkli were members of the Zurich section of the Grütliverein, which had existed since 1846, and were committed to the Zurich consumer association, which was founded in 1851 .
In the 1860s, democratic movements against the concentration of power among the successful industrialists (" Escher System ") and the dominant right-wing liberal freedom were formed in industrialized north-west and east Switzerland . Because the liberal economic policy was concentrated on Zurich, Winterthur and many rural areas felt disadvantaged.
The intellectual center of the democracy movement became the Winterthurer Landbote with its editor Salomon Bleuler . The emanating democratic state theory was called the École de Winterthour in western Switzerland . The Democrats of Winterthur formed a central committee that drew up a party program, called for the constitution to be revised, and decided to announce the movement's program to the «Landsgemeinden».
These people's assemblies were held on December 15, 1867 with around 18,000 men (more than a quarter of all voters) in Uster, Bülach, Winterthur and Zurich to demand direct political participation and socio-political reforms. Almost 27,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment came together at the meetings. According to the constitutional revision adopted in 1865, the people had to decide on a constitutional amendment if 10,000 citizens wanted one. In the following referendum on January 26, 1868, the people of Zurich voted with a majority of 50,000 against 7,000 votes (with 65,000 voters) for the total revision of the state constitution and also with a large majority for a constitutional council.
“But a constitution is not a stylistic exam. The so-called logical, beautiful philosophical constitutions have never enjoyed a long life. If this were helped, the survived republics would still be there, which once ordered constitutions from Rousseau because they had no people in whom the true constitutions are latent until the last moment. The most beautiful ones seem to us to be those constitutions in which, regardless of style and symmetry, one concrete, one attained right lies next to another, like the hard, shiny grains in granite, and which are at the same time the clearest history of themselves. "
The 1869 Constitution
The constitution of 1869 was the first consistent attempt to implement the idea of pure popular rule in a form appropriate to modern cultural conditions . However, there were important forerunners, some cantons already had the veto (legal referendum), others had the initiative, there were already expanded popular rights in the canton of Lucerne (1841, dismantled again in 1848) and in the canton of Baselland and in the canton of Zurich as part of the democratic movement.
The constitution of 1869 emerged from the antagonism of the Democrats and the Liberals in the deliberations of the Constitutional Council. The initiative lay with the Democratic Party of the Canton of Zurich, founded in 1867, and the city of Winterthur. She found her greatest support in the civil servants and teachers. The main press organ that supported the party was the Winterthurer Landbote.
The countermovement in the deliberations came from the Liberals . The economic liberals had founded the Liberal Party, the center of which was predominantly the city of Zurich. Your press organ was the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . At the end of the 19th century, the Liberals formed an alliance of convenience with the Democrats.
In March 1868, 222 constitutional councilors were elected, mostly men with political experience. The supporters of the revision won two thirds of the seats. The Constitutional Council elected the Mayor of Winterthur, Johann Jakob Sulzer, as its President. Until the end of May the people had the opportunity to submit their wishes for the new constitution in the form of petitions. At the end of May, the Constitutional Council appointed a commission of 35 to draw up a draft constitution with the instruction "to implement the principle of direct legislation by the people". The parliament, so Johann Caspar Sieber declared in the Constitutional Council in 1868, should in future only function as a «preliminary advisory commission». The commission was composed almost entirely of Democrats. The first draft constitution was published in the Landbote on August 1, 1868 and served on the constitutional councils. The draft, which was corrected by the 35 Commission in August, was published towards the end of the month in the Landbote and in the NZZ.
The Constitutional Council dealt with the drafts in two deliberative sessions from August to March and voted on March 31, 1869 at a ratio of 145 to 46 for the new constitution. In the referendum of April 18, 1869, the new constitution was adopted with 61 percent yes, with a participation of 91 percent.
It was the first direct democratic constitution in Switzerland. No other canton had so far made such a radical change from a purely representative system to a model with far-reaching direct democratic elements. The idea of pure popular rule was introduced in a form corresponding to modern cultural conditions. The democratic movement had achieved a great victory with the cantonal constitution.
Expansion of democratic rights
On April 18, 1869, the canton of Zurich expanded the influence of its voters with a popular initiative, referendum, and popular election of the government council on politics. The constitutional order created at that time is basically still in force today.
The central element of the new constitution, popular sovereignty, was specified in the first article of the constitution. The Free State was thus no longer a democratic-representative one , but a direct democratic one in which the will of the people , the true public opinion, represents the highest law.
While the constitution of 1831 stipulated that state authority would be exercised by the Grand Council as the representative of the people, Article 1 of the new constitution read as follows: State authority rests on the entirety of the people. It is exercised directly by the active citizens and indirectly by the authorities and civil servants .
So far, the people could only elect the members of the Grand Council (new Cantonal Council) so that they could enact laws as representatives of the people. With the new right of people's initiative and referendum, the people could now directly influence legislation (proposals, constitutional amendments, laws, concordats). 5000 signatures were required for the initiative, and for the referendum (including financial referendum), the laws drawn up by the cantonal council had to be presented to the people in spring and autumn. With the individual initiative, a single citizen could launch a request (with the support of at least a third of the cantonal councils).
The government council was no longer elected by parliament, but directly by the citizens. The Zurich Council of States were determined in popular elections. At the community level, the clergy and teachers of the elementary school were elected by community members and confirmed after six years.
In the socio-political area, elementary school instruction became compulsory and free, and the progression was extended to include wealth tax. Thanks to the commitment of Johann Jakob Keller , the Zürcher Kantonalbank was created (opening of the first branch on February 15, 1870) to promote the economic development of the landscape by giving the industry and the people loans on fair terms. The canton had to promote the cooperative system based on self-help and to enact labor protection laws. The ban on coalitions was lifted, which made it possible to found unions. The conscripts were equipped by the state. The death penalty and chain penalty have been abolished.
The communal freedom was ensured by extensive rights of community meetings: Supervision of local government, setting the annual budget, adoption of the financial statements, approval of tax rates, approval of bigger issues. With the systematic implementation of direct democracy, the canton of Zurich paved the way for the introduction and expansion of direct democracy in other cantons and at the federal level: in 1869 and 1870, the cantons of Bern, Solothurn, Thurgau and Aargau introduced the mandatory referendum. At the federal level, the referendum followed in 1874 and the initiative in 1891.
The economic freedom is regulated in Article 21: The exercise of any professional style in art and science, commerce and trade is free. The legal and police regulations, which the public good requires, are reserved.
Today's canton constitution
The constitution of 1869 was considered the most modern in Europe at the time. The need for a total revision was justified by the fact that the constitution had become a patchwork due to the many partial revisions and additions. Among other things, a new spending and debt brake was laid down in the constitution.
On June 13, 1999, the people of Zurich voted with a large majority for a total revision of the cantonal constitution of April 18, 1869 and thus set up a constitutional council to draft the new constitution. The new constitution of the canton of Zurich was adopted by the people on February 27, 2005.
literature
- State Archives of the Canton of Zurich (Ed.): Small Zurich Constitutional History 1218–2000
- Zücher Cantonal Council October 24, 1994: Commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the canton's constitution from 1869
- Zurich Cantonal Council, memorial file of April 17, 1944: 75 years of the 1869 constitution
- Rolf Graber (Ed.): Democratization processes in Switzerland in the late 18th and 19th centuries . Research colloquium as part of the research project “The democratic movement in Switzerland from 1770 to 1870”. An annotated selection of sources. Supported by the FWF / Austrian Science Fund. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Vienna, 2008. 93 p. Series of publications by the International Research Center “Democratic Movements in Central Europe 1770–1850”. Vol. 40 Edited by Helmut Reinalter, ISBN 978-3-631-56525-4 .
- René Roca, Andreas Auer (ed.): Paths to direct democracy in the Swiss cantons . Writings on Democracy Research, Volume 3. Center for Democracy Aarau and Verlag Schulthess AG, Zurich, Basel, Geneva, 2011. ISBN 978-3-7255-6463-7 .
- Werner Wüthrich: The constitution of the canton of Zurich from 1869. In: Economy and direct democracy in Switzerland. History of the free and democratic economic constitution in Switzerland. Verlag Zeit -fragen, Zurich 2020, ISBN 978-3-909234-24-0
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ NZZ of April 17, 2019: The day on which Zurich opts for a “truly democratic” constitution
- ^ Constitution of the Canton of Zurich of March 10, 1831, in force on March 23, 1831
- ↑ School Switzerland Blog: Elementary school without democracy?
- ^ City of Winterthur: École de Winterthour
- ↑ 150 years ago: The democratic movement plows the canton of Zurich
- ^ Zurich Cantonal Council, memorial file of April 17, 1944: 75 years of the 1869 constitution
- ↑ The country messenger
- ^ Dodis: Democratic Party
- ^ Letter edition Alfred Escher: Constitutional struggles
- ↑ NZZ of April 17, 2019: The day on which Zurich opts for a “truly democratic” constitution
- ^ Canton of Zurich: Constitution of 1869
- ↑ 150 years ZKB: Now the people are speaking
- ^ Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of Zurich of April 18, 1869
- ↑ swissinfo.ch of February 10, 2005: Pulling rope over the new Zurich constitution
- ↑ admin.ch: Constitution of the Canton of Zurich of February 27, 2005