Switzerland
Switzerland is high-performing in all categories and factors of the Global State of Democracy framework, with the exception of Electoral Participation. Over the past five years, there have been no significant changes in Switzerland’s democratic performance. Switzerland features a highly competitive export-oriented economy that has exhibited steady, moderate growth, stable levels of income inequality and high employment rates. The economy is driven by the services - and to a lesser extent - manufacturing industries.
Switzerland’s political identity is perhaps best characterized by its long-standing commitments to direct representation and decentralization. The country is distinctive in its four official linguistic groups and sizable foreign-born population. Foreign nationals resident in Switzerland do not have the right to vote in national elections but can vote in local elections in certain cantons. This large proportion of non-citizens has come to structure national political competition as a result of growing concerns about the social and economic consequences of immigration, and the European Court of Human Rights recently upheld a complaint of racial profiling by the police. EU concerns about impacts of migration on social security costs and wages recently scuppered talks towards a bilateral framework agreement. Beyond balancing sovereignty and supranational integration, national political competition and party polarization have also been driven by core issue areas such as pension reform and environmental protection.
Switzerland is high performing in Gender Equality, and in 2022 expanded the definition of rape to comprise sexual acts without explicit consent, as opposed to cases where the victim has resisted. However, economic inequality persists across genders, and women remain under-represented in management positions and are more present in unpaid care work and in low-wage sectors. Since 2022, legal gender recognition has been possible based on self-declaration. In the same year, Switzerland legalized same-sex marriage, after 64 per cent of people voted in favour in a national referendum.
In the years to come, it will be important to watch Social Group Equality, including efforts to defend against hate speech online in order to tackle discrimination. It will be important to watch Access to Justice and Basic Welfare in connection with environmental policy, including the implementation of a landmark judgment from the European Court of Human Rights which considered that Switzerland has failed to protect senior women from the impacts of climate change. It will be important to watch debates around a national ban on conversion therapy practices (which aim at inciting members of the LGBTQIA+ community to change their gender identity or sexual orientation), building on existing bans at the cantonal level. Finally, it will be important to watch how the inauguration of an independent National Human Rights Institution will integrate human rights concerns in domestic policy and ensure the implementation of international human rights commitments.
Last updated: July 2024
https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/
September 2024
Authorities investigate forgery of signatures for federal popular initiatives
Investigative journalists alleged in September that companies contracted by campaigns to collect signatures for popular initiatives falsified signatures. The Citizen Service (Service Citoyen), an association promoting civic engagement, filed a criminal complaint in June 2023 after noticing irregularities in the list of signatures collected by a company for their campaign. The Office of the Attorney General and the police have opened a fraud investigation. On 6 September, the Council of States, the upper house of the legislature, separately initiated an examination of the role of the Federal Chancellery, which oversees national elections and verifies the legality of initiatives and referendums. Politicians are calling for reform to protect the integrity of the collection process, including renewed calls for a ban on commercial signature collection (which has been tested at the cantonal level in the past), as well as for electronically verified signature collection.
Sources: The Federal Assembly, SwissInfo (1), SwissInfo (2), RTS, Service Citoyen
June 2024
Parliament votes against implementing ECHR’s climate ruling
Parliament has urged no further action to implement the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)’s April ruling which stated that Switzerland is violating the rights of senior women by failing to protect them from the negative consequences of climate change. The final decision on whether to comply with the decision is expected to be announced by the Federal Council in August, as the branch of government responsible for preparing an action plan to execute the ruling. A declaration, prepared by the Legal Affairs Committee and adopted by both parliamentary houses, criticizes the ECHR ruling for “inappropriate and unacceptable judicial activism,” which, according to the declaration, risks calling the Court’s legitimacy into question. The declaration concludes that there is no reason to take further action on the ECHR’s ruling, claiming it already has an effective climate strategy. The ECHR’s ruling is binding, and leaves it open to Swiss policymakers to remedy the inadequate protections. In response, the NGO that brought the case before the ECHR, KlimaSeniorinnen, launched a petition, collecting over 22,000 signatures to urge MPs to respect the ruling and protect the European Convention on Human Rights.
Sources: International IDEA, BBC, SWR, Swiss Parliament, KlimaSeniorinnen, SRF, EJIL Talk
April 2024
European court finds rights violations in landmark climate judgment
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favour of the association KlimaSeniorinnen, a group of older Swiss women who took action against Switzerland for failing to implement measures to stop climate change. On 9 April, the ECHR found that Switzerland has failed to protect senior women from the negative impacts of climate change, including for their health, in violation of the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights). The judgment also ruled that Switzerland violated the rights of KlimaSeniorinnen to access a court and pointed to the failure of Swiss authorities to carry out a substantive examination of the alleged violations. The ECHR is the first international court to uphold a human rights-based claim to climate protection. The Court leaves it open to Swiss policymakers to remedy the inadequate protections.
Sources: The Guardian (1), The Guardian (2), ECHR (1), ECHR (2), SwissInfo, KlimaSeniorinnen
February 2024
European court upholds complaint of racial profiling by the police
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld the complaint by a Swiss citizen of racial profiling by police after he was stopped and searched in 2015 at Zurich train station, and fined CHF 100 for refusing to comply with the police. It is the first time the ECHR ruled in an ethnic profiling case that an identity check violated the right to private life (Article 8) and the right to non-discrimination (Article 14) protected in the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling further found that the complainant’s right to an effective remedy (Article 13) was violated with regard to the complaint of discrimination based on race. In 2020, a domestic court found that the identity check had been unlawful but left open the question of whether discriminatory motives had factored into the identity check and did not provide recourse for appeal. Switzerland was ordered to pay CHF 22,821 to the complainant.
Sources: ECHR, Amnesty International (1), Amnesty International (2), Swiss Info, humanrights.ch
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Global ranking per category of democratic performance in 2023
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Factors of Democratic Performance Over Time
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