Petitions: seemingly toothless yet fundamental

The right to petition goes back a minimum of to when Egypt built its pyramids. Workers hired to trudge blocks weighing several tons petitioned for better working conditions. The practice survived through the centuries, as subjects petitioned their Emperor or King, posing for the redress of their grievances. the proper was inscribed within the Swiss constitution in 1848, the year Switzerland was created as a federal state.

In contrast to the referendum and popular initiative (implemented in 1874 and 1891), petitions don’t trigger a nationwide vote, and don’t require a proper answer by the govt .

Swiss democracy’s toolbox

Popular initiative: citizens requesting an amendment to Swiss constitution need to collect a minimum of 100,000 signatures of Swiss aged within 18 months. If parliament decides that the initiative is valid, it’s put to a nationwide vote.

Referendum: citizens disagreeing with a choice of parliament can gather a minimum of 50,000 valid signatures within 100 days of the official publication of the act, which is then submitted to a nationwide vote.

Petition: anyone can start and sign a petition, on any topic, and no minimum number of signatures are required. there's no predefined form, it doesn’t trigger a vote and therefore the authorities must only acknowledge the reception, but aren’t required to reply .

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The apparent lack of effectiveness of this tool, not linked to any legally binding commitments, has not hindered its popularity. Swiss authorities are receiving and treating an outsized number of petitions within the last 20 years . With as few as 9 in 1999 and as many as 68 in 2012, topics can vary from requesting measures against an alleged cormorant invasions to the clarification of Switzerland’s position on human rights abuses abroad.

Who files petitions?

The majority are submitted on behalf of groups and organisations, which range from Bible groups to small animal rights associations and powerful trade unions. The Youth Parliament which represents 12-30 years old, alone submitted around 150 petitions since it had been founded in 1991. Often too young to participate in politics through other channels, the 200 participants of the annual youth session fork over many of their demands, which they formulate over several days within the House of Representatives, as petitions.

Many individuals too initiate petitions – mostly men. a number of them have already used the instrument several times to form their voices heard in parliament. one among the foremost prolific voices submitted 22 petitions in his name.

Maggie Blackhawk, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, studied the profile of petitioners to the us Congress until 1950. The results of her research are intriguing. They show that within the US women and minority groups were petitioning regularly.

“The petition process historically (in the world) was an area that wasn’t seen as majoritarian. it had been a counterpoint to the proper to vote, an addition thereto , an area for people at the margins to interact within the law-making process without having to think about their own political power” she notes. “It seems like that representational mechanism is lost in modern-day Switzerland.” A read through by SWI swissinfo.ch of petitions filed over the past 30 years shows that there aren’t many foreign names among petitioners.

Before they were granted voting rights in 1971, Swiss women were active petitioners, and even filed a petition posing for their suffrage rights in 1929. Today, women are rarely the only authors of petitions. With four submitted in her name, Regula Heinzelmann, blogger and author, is that the woman who filed the foremost petitions in Switzerland over the past 30 years. “If I even have the impression that a subject (that I mention on my blog) is well received, I feel obliged to publicly represent the opinion of my readers, for instance with a petition,” explains the retired lawyer. “After all, I’m retired, so I can do some voluntary work.”

Because they permit anyone – no matter age, nationality, or voting rights – to access the political debate, petitions not only appear as a fundamental freedom of expression tool, but also possibly as democracy in its purest form. within the US constitution, on which Swiss organic law is predicated , the proper to petition is explicitly mentioned within the First Amendment , commonly known to make sure freedom of expression. the proper to vote though isn’t explicitly mentioned. “That should help us see petitioning as a complement to the proper to vote and on par with it, instead of something that’s subsumed to it” says Blackhawk.

Heinzelmann is aware that petitions often don't have political consequences. To avoid this impasse, she tries to not start a petition for each issue, but instead follows the parliamentary programme. For Social Democrat co-president and parliamentarian Cédric Wermuth, timing is vital . “In what seems like 80% of cases, the matter isn't that parliament doesn’t want to affect the difficulty , but that the petition comes at a time when the parliamentary process is just too far advanced.”

Wermuth himself is one among the few active parliamentarians whose name appears because the author of a petition. But he doesn’t want to ascertain himself as an exception: actually many organisations that start petitions are backed by active politicians.

Numbers count

Historically a private act, petitions are nowadays submitted with many thousands of signatures: in February this year an invitation to not mess with women’s pension plan received 314,000 signatures. In June 2019, 340,000 people signed a petition launched by Swiss pharmacists’ association calling on the govt to drop its cost-saving plans and boost basic medical services instead.

On May 15, 2021, several trade unions and feminist groups handed in a petition, signed by 300,000 people, against the raising of the retirement age. Keystone / Peter Schneide

If there’s no minimal amount of signatures required, a petition signed by many will probably weigh differently than a private letter. “It’s differently of generating pressure, like saying if you are doing that now, there are many people that will afflict you.” explains Wermuth. “This can jeopardise a bill, as you’re showing that a choice could be challenged by a referendum. A petition are often a preliminary stage to a referendum.”

Because signatures for referendums or initiatives need to be collected during a short amount of your time , finding a network of like-minded people is crucial to the success of the method . Signing a petition, whether online or on paper, can contribute to the creation of such a network. “For certain issues, if it’s about people seeing and talking about the difficulty . If you would like to create a community as a next step, petitions are very worthwhile.” confirms Daniel Graf, founding father of WeCollect, a Swiss online platform for signature collection. Nevertheless, his platform WeCollect doesn't collect signatures for petitions: “Compared to initiatives and referendums, there's often a scarcity of lasting impact because petitions rarely trigger political processes.”

Filing a petition also can become a mediatised event with the aim of attracting attention. Petitioners pose ahead of all the signatures they’ve collected, and sometimes make some extent of catching the public’s eye, be it with colourful masks and flags or animal stunts.

People wearing Uighur masks standing on the Bundesplatz (parliament square) during the handing in of the petition “#NoComplicity: Switzerland must renegotiate free trade agreement with China!”, in Bern on Monday, September 7, 2020. Keystone / Anthony Anex

The Swiss Wolf Group submitted the petition “For the protection of the wolf in Switzerland” with 25’000 signatures, on Wednesday, November 24, 2010, in Bern. Dukas / Peter Gerbe

Members of the farmers’ movement, the Bäuerliche Bewegung Schweiz (BBS) on their way to Bern on July 23, 1998, along with their cow Aster. They were handing in a petition to parliament calling for the price of milk to be set to 82.4 centimes (c.90 US cents). Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle

Around 200 children handed over the petition calling “for a real free choice of school” in Bern on Thursday, November 27, 2003. The parents’ association elternlobby.schweiz collected 40,680 signatures. Keystone / Edi Engele

On January 9, 1995 the committee “Equal rights for same-sex couples” handed in a petition of the same name. They collected around 85,000 signatures in 9 months. Keystone / Juerg Mueller

Members of the youth campaign group “Aktion Selbstschutz” from Basel abseil down the Johanniterbrücke over the Rhine on February 8, 1987, to protest against their petition being rejected by the Basel’s Department of Education. The apprentices were calling for fuller information on the Schweizerhalle environmental disaster, which caused a widespread loss of fish. The petition had collected over 1,000 signatures. Keystone / Str

Young people from the “Movement of the Dissatisfied” demanded a free meeting and cultural centre in their petition of over 4,000 signatures, which was handed in on August 17, 1980. Keystone

Radio 24 boss Roger Schawinski delivered a 212,000-signature petition to parliament in support of his station during a cheerful demonstration in Bern on December 29, 1979. Keystone

On December 6, 1971, members of the non-governmental environmental organisation WWF presented the Federal Chancellery with a total of 730,000 signatures from two petitions, the “Petition for the Preservation of the Upper Engadine Lake Areas” and the “Petition for the Protection of Endangered Species”. Keystone / Str

Innkeepers and hoteliers submitted the petition “For the preservation of an efficient hospitality industry” in Bern on September 16, 1972. The petition called for 30,000 additional permits for seasonal workers from abroad. Photopress – ARchiv

Former government minister Rodolphe Rubattel accepted 573,269 signatures from Belgian mine workers, during an international conference in Geneva in 1955. They called for a reduction in working hours through the introduction of the 5-day week. Rdb By Dukas / Grisel

A delegation of women presented a petition at the International Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on February 9, 1932, which had been signed by millions of women from all over the world, calling for global disarmament. Topfoto.co.uk

A demonstration on the occasion of a petition for women’s suffrage in Bern, Switzerland, in 1929. Photopress-Archiv

In November 1830, 40 residents from the Basel countryside submitted a petition calling for better representation in the local parliament. On January 1831, after the local government refused their request, the residents took arms and marched to the city in protest. In turn, city troops marched into the countryside at Liestal. The result: the separation of the Basel area into two half cantons. Photopressarchiv

Petitioning round the world

The right to petition isn’t a Swiss peculiarity. Many countries have it inscribed in their own constitutions. the ecu Parliament also allows anyone living during a member country to submit a petition which must concern one among the 44 EU policy areas. the wants and effectiveness of petitions might however vary among countries: in Britain a petition has first to be signed by 100,000 before it gets considered for a debate in Parliament. In Austria it's to be backed and submitted by a member of parliament before it are often discussed.

In some countries, the proper to petition in theory and in practice might differ. In China, petitioning may be a tradition dating as far back because the beginning of the Chinese empire, where the central power would historically be ready to redress grievances that local authorities had dismissed. However, investigative reports have shed a light-weight on illegal businesses that aim at preventing citizens to report local injustice to the central government through violence and intimidation.

The democratic value of petitions

“The importance of the proper to petition is prime to the legitimacy of the democratic framework and therefore the democratic process. Because if you've got a democracy that only represents some people, yet regulates all of those people without giving them any sort of representation, that’s problematic to me as a matter of democratic process” says Blackhawk. “That doesn’t sound just like the demos of all the people. It seems like a number of the people regulating people .”

Nowadays, in Switzerland, petitions mainly function campaign vehicles for established politicians or Swiss men. But the potential remains: petitions are still hospitable all.