by devil » Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:52 pm
Having lived in Switzerland for 35 years, please allow me to correct any misunderstanding.
1. There are three levels of government: federal, cantonal and communal. Of these, the communal is the strongest and most important, followed by the cantonal and the federal is the weakest. Why is this? Because the federal government is responsible ONLY for things of national interest, like the military, money, customs, foreign affairs etc. The federal cabinet has only 7 ministries with one federal councillor for each and the federal president is elected annually without re-eligibility by the federal assembly. Things like health, education, police, language, roads etc, are the responsibility of the communes and cantons, without much federal control, other than outlining that the motorway going through Vaud meets up with that going through Fribourg or Valais!
2. I paid most taxes to the commune, less to the canton and very little to the confederation.
3. The Penal, Civil and Obligations Codes form the basis of federal law but the interpretation and administration of the law is mostly cantonal and communal. There are thousands of articles where it states that such-and-such is discretionary on the cantons which, in turn, turn it over to the communes.
4. The only federal bodies that have a certain amount of power are the Federal Supreme Courts. These rule only on matters of the interpretation of Federal Law and, as often as not, they give a ruling and then pass it back to the cantonal judiciary for a revised judgement.
5. I bet few people here can even name the Swiss President (2006, Moritz Leuenberger; 2007, Madeleine Calmey-Rey), such is the low key of Swiss Federalism.
Edit:
The Swiss Confederal system is arguably one of the best methods of government in the world and certainly the nearest to a direct democracy. Because of it, a country with practically no natural resources and little easy-to-work agricultural land, with four national languages and six ethnic groups and cultures, has melded itself into one of the richest countries (per capita) in the world. One country has modelled itself after it and, in 40-odd years, has turned itself from a poor, swampy, island into the richest and most innovative country in SE Asia, Singapore. It could never work in Cyprus, though, because there is no room in confederalism for corruption, the cult of political personalities or "coumbari-ism".
