-
- Art. 5a FC
- Art. 6 FC
- Art. 10 FC
- Art. 16 FC
- Art. 17 FC
- Art. 20 FC
- Art. 22 FC
- Art. 29a FC
- Art. 30 FC
- Art. 32 FC
- Art. 42 FC
- Art. 43 FC
- Art. 43a FC
- Art. 55 FC
- Art. 56 FC
- Art. 60 FC
- Art. 68 FC
- Art. 75b FC
- Art. 77 FC
- Art. 96 para. 2 lit. a FC
- Art. 110 FC
- Art. 117a FC
- Art. 118 FC
- Art. 123b FC
- Art. 136 FC
- Art. 166 FC
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- Art. 11 CO
- Art. 12 CO
- Art. 50 CO
- Art. 51 CO
- Art. 84 CO
- Art. 143 CO
- Art. 144 CO
- Art. 145 CO
- Art. 146 CO
- Art. 147 CO
- Art. 148 CO
- Art. 149 CO
- Art. 150 CO
- Art. 701 CO
- Art. 715 CO
- Art. 715a CO
- Art. 734f CO
- Art. 785 CO
- Art. 786 CO
- Art. 787 CO
- Art. 788 CO
- Transitional provisions to the revision of the Stock Corporation Act of June 19, 2020
- Art. 808c CO
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- Art. 2 PRA
- Art. 3 PRA
- Art. 4 PRA
- Art. 6 PRA
- Art. 10 PRA
- Art. 10a PRA
- Art. 11 PRA
- Art. 12 PRA
- Art. 13 PRA
- Art. 14 PRA
- Art. 15 PRA
- Art. 16 PRA
- Art. 17 PRA
- Art. 19 PRA
- Art. 20 PRA
- Art. 21 PRA
- Art. 22 PRA
- Art. 23 PRA
- Art. 24 PRA
- Art. 25 PRA
- Art. 26 PRA
- Art. 27 PRA
- Art. 29 PRA
- Art. 30 PRA
- Art. 31 PRA
- Art. 32 PRA
- Art. 32a PRA
- Art. 33 PRA
- Art. 34 PRA
- Art. 35 PRA
- Art. 36 PRA
- Art. 37 PRA
- Art. 38 PRA
- Art. 39 PRA
- Art. 40 PRA
- Art. 41 PRA
- Art. 42 PRA
- Art. 43 PRA
- Art. 44 PRA
- Art. 45 PRA
- Art. 46 PRA
- Art. 47 PRA
- Art. 48 PRA
- Art. 49 PRA
- Art. 50 PRA
- Art. 51 PRA
- Art. 52 PRA
- Art. 53 PRA
- Art. 54 PRA
- Art. 55 PRA
- Art. 56 PRA
- Art. 57 PRA
- Art. 58 PRA
- Art. 59a PRA
- Art. 59b PRA
- Art. 59c PRA
- Art. 62 PRA
- Art. 63 PRA
- Art. 67 PRA
- Art. 67a PRA
- Art. 67b PRA
- Art. 75 PRA
- Art. 75a PRA
- Art. 76 PRA
- Art. 76a PRA
- Art. 90 PRA
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- Vorb. zu Art. 1 FADP
- Art. 1 FADP
- Art. 2 FADP
- Art. 3 FADP
- Art. 5 lit. f und g FADP
- Art. 6 Abs. 6 and 7 FADP
- Art. 7 FADP
- Art. 10 FADP
- Art. 11 FADP
- Art. 12 FADP
- Art. 14 FADP
- Art. 15 FADP
- Art. 19 FADP
- Art. 20 FADP
- Art. 22 FADP
- Art. 23 FADP
- Art. 25 FADP
- Art. 26 FADP
- Art. 27 FADP
- Art. 31 para. 2 lit. e FADP
- Art. 33 FADP
- Art. 34 FADP
- Art. 35 FADP
- Art. 38 FADP
- Art. 39 FADP
- Art. 40 FADP
- Art. 41 FADP
- Art. 42 FADP
- Art. 43 FADP
- Art. 44 FADP
- Art. 44a FADP
- Art. 45 FADP
- Art. 46 FADP
- Art. 47 FADP
- Art. 47a FADP
- Art. 48 FADP
- Art. 49 FADP
- Art. 50 FADP
- Art. 51 FADP
- Art. 54 FADP
- Art. 57 FADP
- Art. 58 FADP
- Art. 60 FADP
- Art. 61 FADP
- Art. 62 FADP
- Art. 63 FADP
- Art. 64 FADP
- Art. 65 FADP
- Art. 66 FADP
- Art. 67 FADP
- Art. 69 FADP
- Art. 72 FADP
- Art. 72a FADP
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- Art. 2 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 3 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 4 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 5 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 6 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 7 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 8 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 9 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 11 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 12 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 25 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 29 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 32 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 33 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 34 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
CODE OF OBLIGATIONS
FEDERAL LAW ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW
LUGANO CONVENTION
CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE
FEDERAL ACT ON POLITICAL RIGHTS
CIVIL CODE
FEDERAL ACT ON CARTELS AND OTHER RESTRAINTS OF COMPETITION
FEDERAL ACT ON INTERNATIONAL MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS
DEBT ENFORCEMENT AND BANKRUPTCY ACT
FEDERAL ACT ON DATA PROTECTION
SWISS CRIMINAL CODE
CYBERCRIME CONVENTION
- I. History of origin
- II. Comparison of laws
- III. Meaning of the provision and content of the provision
- Bibliography
I. History of origin
1 The Federal Act on the Election of Members of the National Council of December 21, 1850 already provided for regulations on the "completion of individual positions in the National Council during a term of office". If a National Councillor wished to resign from office and was required to hold office in their canton, they had to submit a request for resignation to "their electorate or the cantonal government concerned". For National Councillors who came from a canton without compulsory office, it was sufficient to submit a declaration of resignation to the National Council, provided it was in session. This was recorded by the National Council. If a resignation was submitted outside of National Council sessions, it had to be submitted to the Federal Council for the record. The member of the National Council was legally obliged to carry out his or her mandate until a successor was elected.
2 In contrast, the subsequent Federal Act on Elections to the National Council of February 14, 1919 did not contain any specific provisions on resignation.
3 It was only with the creation of the Federal Act on Political Rights in 1976 that a specific provision on the resignation of a member of the National Council was again included in the PRA in Art. 54. According to this provision, the member must notify the President of the National Council of his or her resignation in writing. This provision has never been revised since the PRA came into force.
II. Comparison of laws
4 The vast majority of cantons do not include any provisions on the modality of resignation from parliament in their decrees concerning the election of their parliament. These cantons merely describe in their decrees how the parliamentary seat is to be filled in the event of the premature resignation of a member. Only in a few cantons, such as Bern and Schaffhausen, does the law explicitly stipulate that a resignation from parliament must be communicated to the president in writing. In the canton of St. Gallen, the resignation must be submitted to the State Chancellery and in the canton of Valais to the State Council.
5 In cantons where members of parliament are required to hold office, it is generally not possible to resign before the end of the term of office. These cantons stipulate that a member of parliament who wishes to resign from office prematurely must submit a request for resignation to the competent authority. In the canton of Nidwalden, for example, the cantonal council must approve the resignation request of a departing member; in the canton of Uri, the cantonal government decides on resignation requests from members of the cantonal council, whereby the members must remain in office until the dismissal decision is made. As the obligation to hold office at cantonal level is a "barely enforced rule" with regard to members of parliament, requests for dismissal from office are only to be submitted pro forma. These are approved by the competent authorities without further ado.
III. Meaning of the provision and content of the provision
6 The term "resignation" refers to the resignation from the National Council before the end of the term of office (Art. 149 para. 2 sentence 2 FC). In the event of a resignation, the term of office of the resigning member (Art. 145 sentence 1 FC) is terminated prematurely. If, on the other hand, a member of the National Council leaves office at the end of the four-year term of office, this is logically not a resignation.
7 Art. 54 PRA does not, as might be inferred from the subject heading, form the basis for the right of a member of the National Council to resign during the term of office, but merely regulates its modality. Rather, the right of resignation of each individual member arises from the fact that there is no obligation to hold office at federal level. Every member of the National Council is therefore entitled to resign voluntarily from the National Council at any time, thus making the seat available for the successor.
A. Written declaration of resignation
8 The declaration of resignation of the outgoing member of the National Council must be made in writing. The formal requirement that the declaration of resignation must be in writing has only existed since the PRA came into force. The National Council Election Acts of 1850 and 1919 did not stipulate any formal requirements for the declaration of resignation. The introduction of the written form requirement was not justified in the 1976 legislative process; it naturally leads to greater legal certainty.
9 In principle, written form in public law means that the content of the declaration must be written down on a durable medium (usually on paper) and signed by hand. In practice, however, written form is defined very broadly. According to this, the letter of resignation must be signed by hand or electronically by the member of the National Council. The resignation can be submitted by letter, fax or e-mail, whereby the resignation must be clearly attributable to the member of the National Council (e.g. by sending the resignation using the parliamentary e-mail address [domain: @parl.ch]). The resignation is ineffective if, for example, it is only declared by telephone, on social media or at a media conference. In my opinion, this broad interpretation of the term "in writing" must be taken into account in the next revision of the PRA and incorporated into the law.
B. President of the National Council as the addressee of the resignation
10 The addressee of the resignation is the President of the National Council. There is no provision for the letter of resignation to be sent by the resigning member of the National Council to another authority such as a cantonal state chancellery or the Federal Chancellery. In accordance with Art. 15 para. 1 VPR, the General Secretariat of the Federal Assembly notifies the relevant cantonal government of the letter of resignation received.
C. No reasons for resignation
11 In principle, no reasons need to be given for a resignation. However, it is quite common for the resigning member of the National Council to state their reasons for leaving early in their letter of resignation. These are occasionally read out or paraphrased in excerpts by the President of the National Council as part of the farewell ceremony for the departing member of the National Council.
I would like to thank Benjamin Böhler, BLaw, assistant at the Center for Democracy Aarau, for his help in researching the material and his valuable comments, as well as Janis Denzler, BLaw, assistant at the Center for Democracy Aarau, for his critical review of the text and his valuable comments.
I would also like to thank the Secretary General of the Federal Assembly, Philippe Schwab, for his valuable information on the practice of resignations in the National Council.
Bibliography
Auer Andreas, Staatsrecht der schweizerischen Kantone, Bern 2016.
Hangartner Yvo/Kley Andreas/Braun Binder Nadja/Glaser Andreas, Die demokratischen Rechte in Bund und Kantonen der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, 2. Aufl., Zürich 2023.
Lammers Guillaume, Kommentierung zu Art. 149 BV, in: Martenet Vincent/Dubey Jacques (Hrsg.), Commentaire romand, Constitution fédérale, Basel 2021.
Markić Luka, Kommentierung zu Art. 55 BPR, in: Glaser Andreas/Braun Binder Nadja/Bisaz Corsin/Tornay Schaller Bénédicte (Hrsg.), Onlinekommentar zum Bundesgesetz über die politischen Rechte, abrufbar unter https://onlinekommentar.ch/de/kommentare/bpr54, besucht am 18.10.2023.
Schaub Lukas, Kommentierung zu Art. 145 BV, in: Waldmann Bernhard/Besler Eva Maria/Epiney Astrid (Hrsg.), Basler Kommentar, Bundesverfassung, Basel 2015.