Sign the Giacometti Initiative now and strengthen the people's rights

13.06.2022, by News Team

Urgently declared federal laws should be submitted to a vote of the people. This is what the Giacometti Initiative demands. With your signature you strengthen the sovereign and direct democracy.

The balance of power in our state is increasingly shifted in favour of government and parliament. The voters - the sovereign - are losing out. This was particularly evident in the federal government's Corona policy. Decisions were blithely made without regard to the people and the constitution. In order to restore a certain constitutional balance, a committee of concerned citizens has therefore launched the popular initiative "The people and the cantons decide on urgently declared federal laws".

In short form, it is called the "Giacometti Initiative", in reference to the great liberal Swiss constitutionalist Zaccaria Giacometti (1893-1970).

Crystal clear constitutional provision

The initiative thus aims to strengthen the people's rights and to curb the usurpation of power by politicians in Bern (or: "in the Federal Bern"). This is done with a simple, crystal-clear provision in the Federal Constitution: according to it, federal laws declared urgent "must be submitted to a vote within 100 days of their adoption by the Federal Assembly". If an urgent federal law is not adopted by the people and the cantons within this period, it will cease to be in force again.
This simplifies the Federal Constitution and strengthens the right of referendum. As has been shown in the jungle of official Corona measures, an optional referendum was taken against some urgent laws. However, many voters were not even aware of what they were voting on. And the legal provisions changed so quickly that often not even specialists knew what was valid and what was not (any more).

Control power, strengthen the right of referendum

The Giacometti Initiative counteracts this: it helps to shift the out-of-sync system of checks and balances back in favour of the sovereign. This is central to the preservation of our direct-democratic state system. Because the right of referendum is what distinguishes Switzerland: It is the main pillar of our liberal constitution and guarantees the democratic control of power.

Sign now and send in the sheet

The Friends of the Constitution are fully behind the goals of the Giacometti Initiative and support it to the best of their ability. You too can sign the initiative and send in the signature form today. In this way we can put a stop to the abuse of power by the authorities and stop the dangerous erosion of our constitutional state and our direct democracy.

Directly to the website of the initiative committee