Legal provisions for recall at national level

FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISSCONFEDERATION

(Adopted1999; last amended 2013)

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Title 6: Revision of theFederal Constitution and Transitional Provisions

Chapter 1: Revision

Art. 193 Total Revision

(3) If the People vote for a total revision, newelections shall be held to both Chambers.

Georg Lutz, ?Switzerland: Citizens? Initiatives as a Measure to Control the Political Agenda,? in Maija Set?l? and Theo Schiller, eds.: Citizens? Initiatives in Europe: Procedures and Consequences of Agenda-Setting by Citizens. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

?If [an] initiative asks for the total revision of the constitution and the initiative is approved, Article 193.3 further states: ?If the People vote for a total revision, new elections shall be held to both Chambers.? The new chambers of the parliament then have the responsibility to draft the new constitution which will then be subject of [sic] a vote again. For organizations interested in pushing for concrete policy proposals it makes little sense to ask for a total revision of the constitution because they cannot propose amendments themselves. This explains why the initiative asking for a total revision has never been invoked so far. Theoretically, this form could also be used to dissolve the parliament. Because there is always a time lag of several years between launching an initiative and the actual vote, followed by a time lag to organize an election, this does not make much sense either, given that elections take place every four years in any case.? (p. 23)

Recall exists only at the sub-national level.

Switzerlandhas a mechanism for indirect recall of the entire legislature, but this is anarrow provision and has never been used in practice (see sources).