Freedom in the World 1999 - Switzerland

1999 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 1.0
Civil Liberties: 1
Political Rights: 1

Overview

In October, the right-wing Swiss People's Party, led by Christoph Blocher, registered dramatic gains in national elections. Running on an anti-immigration and anti-European Union platform, the party went on to become the second largest in the Swiss parliament, earning 44 seats against the 51 held by the ruling Social Democrats. Switzerland's electoral shift to the right followed a June citizens' vote in which more than 70 percent of ballots cast supported government measures to curtail the number of refugees seeking permanent asylum.

In December, Switzerland apologized for its wartime treatment of Jewish refugees seeking to escape into Switzerland. A government-commissioned report stated that Switzerland sealed its borders to Jews in 1942, turning back 25,000 and sending them to certain death in Nazi concentration camps.

Officially neutral and nonaligned, Switzerland is not a member of the United Nations or the European Union (EU). In a 1986 national referendum, voters rejected UN membership by a three-to-one margin. In a 1992 referendum, a narrow majority of voters rejected joining the European Economic Area, a grouping that is seen as a step toward EU membership. Since then, the government has grown increasingly anxious to negotiate a pact with the EU to give Swiss industries and service sectors some benefits of access to the single European market.

In 1996, Switzerland joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program, through which it can participate in nonmilitary humanitarian and training missions.

With the exception of a brief period of centralized power under Napoleonic rule, Switzerland has remained a confederation of local communities as established in the Pact of 1291. Most responsibility for public affairs rests at the local and cantonal levels. The 1815 Congress of Vienna formalized the country's borders and recognized its perpetual neutrality. Switzerland is often cited as a rare example of peaceful coexistence in a multiethnic state. The republic is divided into 20 cantons and 6 half-cantons and includes German, French, Italian, and Romansch communities.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

The Swiss can change their government democratically. Free and fair elections are held at regular intervals. Initiatives and referenda give citizens an additional degree of involvement in the legislative process. The cantonal system allows considerable local autonomy, and localities' linguistic and cultural heritages are zealously preserved.

At the national level, both houses of the Federal Assembly have equal authority. After legislation has been passed in both the directly elected, 200-member National Council and the Council of States, which includes two members from each canton, it cannot be vetoed by the executive or reviewed by the judiciary. The seven members of the Federal Council (Bundesrat) exercise executive authority. They are chosen from the Federal Assembly according to a "magic formula" that ensures representation of each party, region, and language group. Each year, one member serves as president.

The judicial system functions primarily at the cantonal level, with the exception of a federal supreme court that reviews cantonal court decisions involving federal law. Switzerland's judiciary is independent. The government's postal ministry operates broadcasting services, and the broadcast media enjoy editorial autonomy. Foreign broadcast media are readily accessible. In addition, there are many private television and radio stations. Privately owned daily, weekly, and monthly publications are available in each of the most common languages and are free from government interference.

Freedoms of speech, assembly, association, and religion are observed. While no single state church exists, many cantons support one or several churches. Taxpayers may opt not to contribute to church funds, yet in many instances, companies cannot. Human rights monitors operate freely. The country's anti-racist law prohibits racist or anti-Semitic speech and actions, and is strictly enforced by the government. In November 1998, the Federal Commission against Racism, the country's official human rights watchdog, warned that "latent anti-Semitism is again being increasingly expressed by word and by deed." It estimated in a major report that one-tenth of the population holds anti-Semitic views. To remedy this, it proposed steps to foster closer ties between the country's Jewish community and its other communities and called on the government to meet its special responsibility to stand up for Jewish citizens.

During the Kosovo war of 1999, thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees expelled from the Serbian province flooded into Switzerland. As a result, Swiss voters approved tighter asylum laws in a June vote. The new rules make it harder for refugees to claim asylum based on persecution in their home countries. Voter approval was highest in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, whose citizens were the most vocal in denouncing the presence of Kosovo Albanians.

A 1994 Amnesty International report cited excessive police force used against persons – particularly foreigners – in custody. The report was issued, in an effort to curb the drug trade, shortly after the National Council increased police powers of search and detention of foreigners who lack identification.

In 1995, federal laws aimed at dissuading drug traffickers from entering Switzerland authorized pretrial detention of legal residents for as long as nine months. With 33,000 drug addicts in a population of seven million, the use of hard drugs has become one of the country's most pernicious social ailments. In June 1999, Swiss citizens voted to continue a state program that provides heroin under medical supervision to hardened addicts.

Although a law on gender equality took effect in 1996, women still face some barriers to political and social advancement. Some studies estimate women's earnings to be 15 percent lower than men's for equal work. Some charge that the army, from which women are excluded, creates networking opportunities for men, thus creating an economic disadvantage for women. Women were not granted federal suffrage until 1971, and the half-canton Appenzell-Innerrhoden did not relinquish its status as the last bastion of all-male suffrage in Europe until 1990. Until the mid-1980s, women were prohibited from participating in the Federal Council. In 1997, journalists revealed that hundreds of women had been forcibly sterilized under a cantonal law passed in 1928. A government critic demanded an official investigation after a historian claimed that the practice continued to this day. In June 1999, Swiss voters rejected a government proposal to introduce paid maternity leave. Swiss law bans women from working for two months after giving birth, but without any guaranteed wages during that period.

Workers may organize and participate in unions and enjoy the right to strike and bargain collectively. Unions are independent of the government and political parties, and approximately one-third of the workforce belongs to unions.