In Switzerland, a federal act[N 1] is a legislative law adopted at the level of the Confederation.
These are defined as follows: A federal law whose implementation cannot be delayed may be declared urgent and enter into effect immediately by a decision of the majority of the members of each Council.
Its validity must be limited in time.The Federal Assembly alone is competent to declare a law urgent.
[16] This means that if 50,000 signatures are collected within 100 days of its official publication (in the Federal Gazette[17]), or if eight cantons request it within the same period, the law is submitted to a vote of the people alone.
[20] During the debate, the former head of the FDJP, Christian Democrat Federal Councillor Arnold Koller, opposed the introduction of an abstract control as in Germany and France.
[21] He justifies this position by the fact that abstract control represents a continuation of politics by other means ("nur eine Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln").
[22][20] Two parliamentary initiatives were tabled after the full amendment of 1999, one in 2005 by the Aargau Evangelical National Councillor Heiner Studer,[23] the other in 2007 by the Zurich Socialist National Councillor Vreni Müller-Hemmi.
[24] The two initiatives are dealt with in a single report by the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Council (CAJ-N),[25] which proposes the abrogation of Article 190 of the Federal Constitution.
[27] During the debate on the introduction of the subject in the National Council,[28] the German-speaking committee rapporteur, the Zurich Green Daniel Vischer, spoke of an object with a certain historical significance for Switzerland ("gewisse epochale Bedeutung für dieses Land").
[41] Another part of the doctrine sees this characteristic as a manifestation of the superiority of the Federal Assembly over the courts (deriving from Art.
[43][33] However, according to the consistent case law of the Federal Supreme Court, Art.
5 (3) and (4)[N 7] of the Federal Constitution, and even in the principle of good faith enshrined in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Art.