Abstract:

On March 3, 2013, the Swiss people for the first time have adopted a federal ballot initiatives which sought to reform parts of civil law. This event is an opportunity to examine how federal ballot initiatives have influenced the evolution of civil law in the past.

The main finding of this study is that ballot initiatives have triggered or accelerated many civil law reforms.  From 1891 until presently, 11 of the 26 initiatives which (also) aimed at reforming parts of civil law, have demonstrably affected civil law evolution.  Since 1980, this was the case in 7 out of 13 initiatives.  Ballot initiatives had the biggest impact in what is called “social private law”:  Important elements of current labor and landlord-tenant law have been shaped by ballot initiatives, including maximum work hours, minimum vacation time, protections against undue termination and remedies against abusive rents.  Occasionally, however, ballot initiatives may constrain civil law evolution.  In the past, when an initiative was rejected by a large majority, parliament refrained from enacting further reforms of the subject-matter.