Posted on 06/01/2008 4:09:53 PM PDT by jamese777
Voters have rejected a proposal by the Swiss People's Party to reinstate the use of the ballot box to decide on naturalisation applications.
More than 63 per cent of voters and all but one of the country's 26 cantons on Sunday came out against the initiative, which also wanted to deny the right of appeal to those whose citizenship requests had been rejected.
Opposition was particularly strong in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, with up to 80 per cent of votes cast against the initiative.
Five years ago the Federal Court outlawed the ballot box as a way of dealing with citizenship requests. It followed a series of allegedly discriminatory decisions by local voters in central Switzerland, particularly against people of Balkan origin.
But the People's Party argued that it was up to local communities to decide on their citizenship procedures - whether by public assembly, special panel or secret vote at the ballot box.
It argued that current policy had led to a wave of naturalisations, including foreign criminals. Its campaign featured a controversial poster showing hands grabbing Swiss passports.
"Discriminatory" But opponents including the government, three of the four main political parties and legal experts, said that reinstating the banned citizenship procedure would be discriminatory.
Switzerland, which has around 21 per cent foreigners, is widely held to have one of the toughest naturalisation processes in Europe, with people needing to wait 12 years before being eligible to apply.
Candidates in European Union countries have to wait between four and ten years.
In 2004 the Swiss rejected simplified naturalisation procedures for second- and third-generation foreigners.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscloud.com ...
What an unusual proposal. Individual votes on every citizenship application? Do they have nothing to do in Switzerland but hold referenda? (And can I be a poll worker, if there’s free chocolate?)
The vote was to decide whether to reinstate the procedure. It had been used successfully there for a very long time.
im confused, how are they handling naturalization now??
I guess there was a reason this procedure was ended. Set a higher benchmark for citizenship, but letting each local community vote on each case of naturalization is a bad idea to start with. In the past Switzerland had far fewer to none immigrants, thus it may have made some sense back then.
Switzerland has a long tradition of direct democracy (as opposed to our and most of Europe’s more republican forms of government where elected federal/state officials make most of the decisions).
When individual citizens are used to voting by referendum on most issues, this proposal would not have been so unusual.
Switzerland traditionally handles immigration and naturalization at the local level by local elected officials but not by the anonymous votes of local citizens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.