The Impact of Direct Democracy on Society - Universität St.Gallen

– 36 –seemingly indirect restriction <strong>of</strong> the statutory initiative 51 , because only fundamentalregulations should be determined in the form <strong>of</strong> laws, whereas before 2002 any issue couldhave been in a statutory form. <strong>The</strong> intention <strong>of</strong> this new regulation was to give the cantonalparliament the power to regulate organizational issues, particularly the execution <strong>of</strong> thefederal law, which in Switzerland is carried out by cantonal administrations, in the form <strong>of</strong>parliamentary decrees that, as administrative acts, cannot be challenged by direct democraticrights 52 . This change in the scope <strong>of</strong> the statutory initiative, however, does not affect the value<strong>of</strong> the index <strong>of</strong> direct democracy because no distinction is made between a statutory initiativewith a wide or a narrow scope <strong>of</strong> application. In the same period, the requirements <strong>of</strong> theconstitutional initiative remained unchanged.In the canton <strong>of</strong> Freiburg, a new constitution took effect on the 1st <strong>of</strong> January, 2005.Regarding the institutional setup <strong>of</strong> either the statutory or the constitutional initiative,however, no change was introduced. Thus, the index <strong>of</strong> direct democracy remains unaffected.<strong>The</strong> sole difference to the old legal system is that for both types <strong>of</strong> initiatives the signaturerequirements are now explicitly stated in the constitution instead <strong>of</strong> being regulatedexclusively by a cantonal law. This complete regulation at the constitutional level does not,however, diminish the power <strong>of</strong> the electorate to change these requirements through aninitiative because in Freiburg it is (and was) as easy to launch a statutory initiative as tolaunch a constitutional one.<strong>The</strong> people <strong>of</strong> Schaffhausen adopted a new constitution that came into force on the 1st <strong>of</strong>January, 2003. This new constitution is one <strong>of</strong> those total revisions that aimed to modernizethe structure and wording without changing the legal content – at least as far as the initiativesare concerned. In the new constitution, both types <strong>of</strong> initiatives are now regulated in onearticle (art. 27 CC) rather than being dispersed within the constitution (art. 108, 107 old CCand art. 43 old CC). <strong>The</strong>refore, no change is observed in the values <strong>of</strong> the subindices <strong>of</strong> eitherthe constitutional or the statutory initiative.51 As well as <strong>of</strong> the mandatory statutory referendum – see section 4.52 According to Mr. DÜRST, Ratsschreiber in the Regierungskanzlei <strong>of</strong> Glarus, in practice this restriction wasonly carried out to solve an academic battle over whether all executions <strong>of</strong> federal laws needed to be based ona so-called cantonal introductory law ('Einführungsgesetz') that would, under the old constitution, have beensubject to a mandatory referendum. In political practice, he claims, no restriction <strong>of</strong> direct democratic rightswas caused by this amendment in May 2002.