Federal popular initiative "for democratic naturalizations"
The federal popular initiative “for democratic naturalizations” (coll. Naturalization initiative ) was a popular initiative launched by the Swiss People's Party , which was rejected on June 1, 2008. The initiative wanted to define the acquisition of Swiss citizenship as a political act - in contrast to the current position of the Federal Supreme Court , which regards this acquisition as an administrative act. An adoption would have resulted in an extension of the 38th article of the Federal Constitution , which allows the municipalities to freely decide which body decides on naturalization decisions (e.g. a citizens' assembly, a naturalization committee or ballot box). A naturalization decision that had been made would also have been final, so the right of appeal would have been withdrawn from the person wishing to naturalize.
History of origin
In a naturalization vote in the municipality of Emmen , 23 people who wanted to be naturalized stood up for election. In Emmen, as in other municipalities in Switzerland, decisions about naturalization applications were made with ballot boxes. Of the 23 applicants for naturalization, eight from Italy were naturalized on March 12, 2000; the 15 applicants, most of whom came from former Yugoslavia, were rejected. On April 11, 2000, the applicants filed a complaint against the rejection with the government council of the Canton of Lucerne . After the latter did not respond to the complaint, the applicants lodged a constitutional complaint with the Federal Supreme Court, which on March 6, 2001 approved the complaint and overturned the decision of the government council for breach of good faith . On March 19, 2002, the government council of the Canton of Lucerne rejected the complaint again. Against the rejection, the applicants filed a new appeal to the Federal Supreme Court on April 23, 2002, requesting that the government council's decision be reversed. In their application, they asserted violations of the prohibition of discrimination and the prohibition of arbitrariness, among other things .
The Federal Supreme Court ruled in favor of the applicants, since the rejection of the naturalization applications according to the practice applied there violated Article 8 paragraph 2 of the Federal Constitution. The naturalization decisions at the ballot box would violate the obligation to state reasons, the judgment continues. The prohibition of arbitrariness requires, among other things, that decisions are factually justified so that an appeals authority can address them.
The Swiss People's Party condemned this federal court decision as a wrong decision. The popular initiative would correct this decision and prevent future misinterpretations in questions of naturalization. Proponents of the popular initiative also criticize the fact that the court rulings degrade the naturalization decisions to mere administrative acts and that Switzerland has the greatest number of naturalizations, mostly from “foreign cultures”. The popular initiative would also have given citizens back the right to decide on naturalization applications.
text
If the initiative had been adopted, the following article would have been added to the Swiss Federal Constitution :
The Federal Constitution of April 18, 1999 is amended as follows:
Art. 38 para. 4 BV (new)
- The voters of each municipality determine in the municipality ordinance which body grants the municipality citizenship. The decision of this body on the granting of community citizenship is final.
occurrence
On April 6, 2004, the list of signatures for the popular initiative was submitted to the Federal Chancellery for preliminary examination. The initiative was initiated by 27 people, and the Swiss People's Party was named as the initiative committee. The collection deadline was set for November 18, 2005. On November 18, 2005, the Federal Chancellery announced that of the 102,326 signatures submitted, 100,038 were valid and the initiative was thus established. Most signatures were collected in the canton of Zurich (27,689 valid) and in the canton of Berne (13,062 valid), and least in the canton of Jura (129 valid) and in the canton of Neuchâtel (283 valid).
Position of the Federal Council and the Federal Assembly
In a message from the Federal Assembly on October 25, 2006, it announced that it was advising the people and the cantons to reject the initiative. The Federal Department of Justice and Police announced in a statement that the Federal Council also rejects the initiative, since the naturalization decisions according to the Federal Supreme Court decision are not purely political in nature, but also an act of application of the law. The National Council supports according to the final vote of 5 October 2007 with 127 to 67 votes. With 34 to 7 votes, the Council of States also confirms the opinion of the Federal Council.
Voting slogans
With the exception of the Federal Democratic Union (except for the Vaud Cantonal Party ), the Swiss People's Party , the Lucerne and Zug Liberal Democratic Party - cantonal parties and the Action for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland , all parties, associations, organizations and chambers of government or parliament called for a « No »voting slogan.
Result
Preliminary official final result:
| Canton | Yes (%) | No (%) | Participation |
|---|---|---|---|
 Aargau
|
71,469 (46.8%) | 81,352 (53.2%) | 40.1% |
 Appenzell Ausserrhoden
|
6,930 (42.6%) | 9,334 (57.4%) | 43.7% |
 Appenzell Innerrhoden
|
1,805 (48.3%) | 1,930 (51.7%) | 34.7% |
 Basel city
|
16,915 (28.5%) | 42,388 (71.5%) | 52.4% |
 Basel-Country
|
28,106 (35.2%) | 51,705 (64.8%) | 43.8% |
 Bern
|
106,471 (36.7%) | 183,565 (63.3%) | 41.3% |
 Freiburg
|
19,874 (27.0%) | 53,673 (73.0%) | 42.5% |
 Geneva
|
21,538 (17.9%) | 98,778 (82.1%) | 52.6% |
 Glarus
|
4,609 (48.9%) | 4,816 (51.1%) | 37.0% |
 Grisons
|
17,776 (35.0%) | 32,975 (65.0%) | 38.3% |
 law
|
3,875 (19.8%) | 15,736 (80.2%) | 40.0% |
 Lucerne
|
50,940 (44.3%) | 64,043 (55.7%) | 46.9% |
 Neuchâtel
|
9,203 (18.0%) | 41,991 (82.0%) | 48.3% |
 Nidwalden
|
6,523 (49.1%) | 6,771 (50.9%) | 46.1% |
 Obwalden
|
5,302 (47.1%) | 5,955 (52.9%) | 48.5% |
 Schaffhausen
|
12,621 (42.8%) | 16,835 (57.2%) | 63.1% |
 Schwyz
|
26,559 (59.9%) | 17,758 (40.1%) | 47.6% |
 Solothurn
|
31,357 (41.4%) | 44,389 (58.6%) | 44.9% |
 St. Gallen
|
58,523 (48.3%) | 62,591 (51.7%) | 40.3% |
 Ticino
|
42,357 (42.2%) | 58,127 (57.8%) | 50.0% |
 Thurgau
|
27,875 (48.9%) | 29,081 (51.1%) | 37.5% |
 Uri
|
4,352 (46.5%) | 5,002 (53.5%) | 36.8% |
 Vaud
|
37,901 (19.0%) | 199,331 (84.0%) | 51.1% |
 Valais
|
22,779 (25.0%) | 68,411 (75.0%) | 47.2% |
 train
|
15,226 (44.3%) | 19,174 (55.7%) | 48.9% |
 Zurich
|
153,794 (39.3%) | 237,379 (60.7%) | 47.0% |
 Swiss Confederation
|
804,730 (36.2%) | 1,415,249 (63.8%) | 44.8% |
Individual evidence
-
↑ According to Article 8, Paragraph 2 of the Federal Constitution :
Nobody may be discriminated against, namely not because of their origin, race, gender, age, language, social status, way of life, religious, ideological or political convictions or because of a physical, mental or psychological disability. - ↑ relevancy.bger.ch: Federal Supreme Court judgment 129 I 217 (accessed on May 2, 2008)
- ↑ svp.ch: Press release Democratic decisions instead of mass naturalizations ! ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ einbuergerungen.ch: Argumentarium ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ einbuergerungen.ch: Nobody naturalises more than Switzerland ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ einbuergerungen.ch: Most of them come from the Balkans ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ admin.ch: wording of the popular initiative (accessed on May 2, 2008)
- ↑ admin.ch: Preliminary examination of the popular initiative (accessed on May 2, 2008; PDF; 96 kB)
- ↑ admin.ch: How the initiative came about (accessed on May 2, 2008; PDF; 482 kB)
- ↑ admin.ch: Federal resolution on the initiative (accessed on May 2, 2008; PDF; 476 kB)
- ↑ ejpd.admin.ch: Federal Council rejects popular initiative "for democratic naturalizations" ( memento of the original from June 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ parliament.ch: final vote of October 5, 2007 (National Council) (accessed on May 2, 2008)
- ^ Parlament.ch: final vote of October 5, 2007 (Council of States) (accessed on May 2, 2008)
- ↑ parlament.ch: Voting slogans for the popular initiative ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 31, 2008)
- ↑ juso.ch: Would you like to become a victim of WILLKÜR? (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ sp-ps.ch: No to the naturalization lottery (accessed on May 2, 2008)
- ↑ cvp.ch: Help the constitution regain more respect: No to the naturalization initiative ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ sosf.ch: June 1st, 2008: NO to arbitrary naturalizations! ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 2, 2008)
- ↑ Template No. 532, preliminary official final results - Swiss Federal Chancellery, June 1, 2008
