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The New Swiss Constitution: Foreign and International Influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Walter Haller
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Extract

The comparative analysis of diverse constitutional orders enables a more sophisticated evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of different models and solutions. Quite often it also serves practical objectives, providing the impulse for improving our own legal system by carefully adopting institutions and procedures that have proven themselves elsewhere. In the case of the Swiss Constitution, the influence of thoughts and concepts developed during the French Revolution and by the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution is quite obvious. More recently, international influences are most apparent in the field of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Summer 2002 , pp. 256 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by the International Association of Law Libraries 

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References

1 See Häfelin, Ulrich/Haller, Walter, Schweizerisches Bundesstaatsrecht (5th edn., Zurich 2001), p. 23.Google Scholar

2 The Federal Constitution of 1848 was replaced by another constitutional document in 1874. However, the Federal Constitution of 1874, in force until the end of 1999, preserved the institutions and principles of the old constitution and thus only implied a “total” revision in a formal sense. Between 1874 and 1999, the FC was amended more than 140 times through partial revisions.Google Scholar

3 See Hamilton, Alexander/Madison, James/Jay, John, The Federalist Papers, a collection of 85 letters to the public that appeared in the newspapers of New York City in 1787 and 1788 and that has become one of the most famous works in political science.Google Scholar

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11 BGE (Entscheidungen des Schweizerischen Bundesgerichts) 101 Ia 67.Google Scholar

12 Example: BGE 120 Ia 254/55.Google Scholar

13 Art. 4 FC.Google Scholar

14 Art. 1 FC.Google Scholar

15 Art. 37 FC.Google Scholar

16 Art. 46 FC.Google Scholar

17 Art. 175 FC.Google Scholar

18 Art. 177 FC.Google Scholar

19 Art. 176 FC.Google Scholar

20 Art. 148–150 and 156 FC.Google Scholar

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22 Art. 140 section 1 letter a and 195 FC.Google Scholar

23 Art. 140 section 1 letter b FC.Google Scholar

24 Art. 141 FC.Google Scholar

25 Art. 138, 139, 193 and 194 FC.Google Scholar