Against political arbitrariness: the Giacometti initiative is coming to an end

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The corona pandemic is long gone. And the memories of their profound impact on social life seem to gradually fade. For Mr and Mrs Schweizer other issues have arisen.

It is therefore not surprising that the so-called Giacometti Initiative is also having a hard time. It is named after the liberal constitutional lawyer Zaccaria Giacometti (1893-1970). The referendum is intended to secure people’s rights.

During the pandemic, parliament declared a series of federal laws urgent and immediately implemented them. Even today, the right of urgency enjoys some popularity – which, however, is only moderately compatible with the right to a referendum, as the “NZZ” points out. This is exactly what the initiative aims to do: federal laws declared urgent must be subject to a referendum or they will expire within 100 days.

Some 20,000 signatures are missing

But nothing can come of it. As the “NZZ” writes, the referendum is almost coming to an end. Instead of the required minimum of 100,000 signatures, just under 80,000 had been collected a week before the collection deadline passed. That’s well below the goal line.

The main initiator is lawyer Alexandre Zindel. He tried to get the project off the ground almost on his own. He invested about 30,000 francs in donations for the Giacometti Initiative. Against this modest budget, he considers the number of signatures achieved to be respectable.

And Zindel has been able to establish many contacts in recent months with citizens who are interested in state politics and who also care about direct democracy. This can also be useful for future projects with a similar focus. He envisions an organization that monitors the state and checks whether a law is important and should be presented to the people. (dba)

Source:Blick