Parliament draws lessons from the crisis

One crisis is not over yet, the next one has already begun. An unmistakable sign is an unusual meeting that took place in Bern on Monday: The Federal Council invited the leaders of all parties represented in Parliament to talk to them about the war in Ukraine and its consequences for Switzerland. The uncertainty is great.

The meeting in the Hotel Bellevue had hardly ended when a debate lasting several hours about the last crisis took place a few meters next door in the Bundeshaus. The National Council’s program included a template with which Parliament wants to draw the lessons from the last two years with the corona pandemic. The goal is clear: in future crises – whatever they look like – Parliament should be able to continue working and keep an eye on the Federal Council. This is anything but succinct.

When the Corona crisis broke out, the legislature – the supreme power in the state according to the people and cantons – was temporarily no longer able to act. The ominous decision was made just two years ago: At a meeting scheduled at short notice on Sunday, March 15, 2020, the offices of the National Council and the Council of States decided to cancel the current session. A day later, the Federal Council declared the lockdown.

Taken out of the race

The termination of the session is still controversial today. Criticism dominates the debate. Parliament is accused of ducking and sending out a fatal signal. By quarantining itself, it allowed the Federal Council to rule the country single-handedly.

Practitioners counter that it would not have been understood if the national and state councils had met at the time when shops, restaurants and schools had to close across the country. In addition, Parliament could not have discussed the Corona policy at all because there were no proposals ready to be voted on. In this way, only the agenda items planned before the outbreak of the crisis would have been processed.

However, it didn’t just stop at the last week of the session. In fact, Parliament has been out of the running for a long time. There were no more commission meetings for three weeks, after which only selected commissions were allowed to meet for the time being. More than a month passed before all committees were able to meet again.

«Parliamentary self-dwarfing»

It is revealing that it was not parliamentarians who were the first to request that an extraordinary session be called, but the Federal Council. It was not until three days after his intervention that 31 members of the Council of States cleared their throats and submitted the same proposal. The big comeback of the legislature finally took place on May 4th. The extraordinary Corona session, which had to take place outside the Federal Palace in the dreary but spacious BEA exhibition halls, began on this day.

The criticism reverberates to this day. For example, the political scientist Daniel Kübler from the Aarau Center for Democracy harshly criticizes the legislature. In the new book “The Corona Elephant” he writes that the supreme power of the federal government was temporarily just a spectator. “The medium and long-term consequences of this parliamentary self-dwarfing in the greatest crisis of the post-war period have yet to be worked out.”

self dwarfing? Legally, Parliament is a giant. He has no lack of opportunities to override the Federal Council even in times of crisis. If the National Council and the Council of States do not agree with the government’s decisions, they can issue emergency ordinances themselves, based on the constitution, which take precedence over those of the Federal Council. This was actually an issue initially during the corona pandemic, but the majority then refrained from doing so. It is also possible to make advances with which Parliament demands corrections to Federal Council decisions.

Step to the digital parliament

In other words, the problem is not that Parliament has too little power, but that it cannot use it at all in an extreme situation. Two years ago, it was the coronavirus that prevented the legislature from convening and making decisions. In the future it could be natural disasters, terrorist attacks or other horror scenarios.

In order to be prepared for all possible cases, the National Council decided on Monday to introduce online meetings: If “physical meeting is not possible”, the offices of the National Council or the Council of States can decide to hold individual meetings completely virtually. For practical reasons alone, it is clear that this should only be an option in absolutely exceptional cases.

This step towards e-parliament was hardly controversial. The same applies to the option, introduced during the Corona crisis, for individual members to take part in council meetings online. Another new feature is that a quarter of the members of a council can request an extraordinary session “immediately” as soon as the Federal Council begins to operate under emergency law.

Not dissatisfied with your own performance

The National Council also wants to selectively improve its position vis-à-vis the executive. Above all: If a commission requests the correction of an emergency regulation, the Federal Council should in future quickly comment on it – in extreme cases during an ongoing session. This would allow Parliament to make decisions faster than before. The Federal Council should now also be given a deadline for implementation.

The National Council does not envisage further corrections. He also refrains from allowing a judicial review of emergency decrees (abstract legal review). Because on the whole you are not dissatisfied with your own performance in the Corona crisis. Even the critical political scientist Kübler draws a conciliatory conclusion: Apart from the “parliamentary break in the first lockdown”, Swiss democracy basically worked. Allegations of a dictatorship are “pretty much out of thin air”.