Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation

The People and the Can­tons of Zurich, Bern, Lu­cerne, Uri, Schwyz, Ob­walden and Nid­walden, Glarus, Zug, Fri­bourg, So­lo­thurn, Basel Stadt and Basel Land­schaft, Schaff­hausen, Ap­pen­zell Aus­ser­rhoden and Ap­pen­zell In­nerr­hoden, St. Gal­len, Graubünden, Aar­gau, Thur­gau, Ti­cino, Vaud, Val­ais, Neuchâtel, Geneva, and Jura form the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹The Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­tect the liberty and rights of the people and safe­guard the in­de­pend­ence and se­cur­ity of the coun­try.

²It shall pro­mote the com­mon wel­fare, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, in­tern­al co­he­sion and cul­tur­al di­versity of the coun­try.

³It shall en­sure the greatest pos­sible equal­ity of op­por­tun­ity among its cit­izens.

⁴It is com­mit­ted to the long term pre­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources and to a just and peace­ful in­ter­na­tion­al or­der.

The Can­tons are sov­er­eign ex­cept to the ex­tent that their sov­er­eignty is lim­ited by the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion. They ex­er­cise all rights that are not ves­ted in the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

The Na­tion­al Lan­guages are Ger­man, French, Itali­an, and Ro­man­sh.

¹All activ­it­ies of the state are based on and lim­ited by law.

²State activ­it­ies must be con­duc­ted in the pub­lic in­terest and be pro­por­tion­ate to the ends sought.

³State in­sti­tu­tions and private per­sons shall act in good faith.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall re­spect in­ter­na­tion­al law.

The prin­ciple of sub­si­di­ar­ity must be ob­served in the al­loc­a­tion and per­form­ance of state tasks.

All in­di­vidu­als shall take re­spons­ib­il­ity for them­selves and shall, ac­cord­ing to their abil­it­ies, con­trib­ute to achiev­ing the tasks of the state and so­ci­ety.

Hu­man dig­nity must be re­spec­ted and pro­tec­ted.

¹Every per­son is equal be­fore the law.

²No per­son may be dis­crim­in­ated against, in par­tic­u­lar on grounds of ori­gin, race, gender, age, lan­guage, so­cial po­s­i­tion, way of life, re­li­gious, ideo­lo­gic­al, or polit­ic­al con­vic­tions, or be­cause of a phys­ic­al, men­tal or psy­cho­lo­gic­al dis­ab­il­ity.

³Men and wo­men have equal rights. The law shall en­sure their equal­ity, both in law and in prac­tice, most par­tic­u­larly in the fam­ily, in edu­ca­tion, and in the work­place. Men and wo­men have the right to equal pay for work of equal value.

⁴The law shall provide for the elim­in­a­tion of in­equal­it­ies that af­fect per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

Every per­son has the right to be treated by state au­thor­it­ies in good faith and in a non-ar­bit­rary man­ner.

¹Every per­son has the right to life. The death pen­alty is pro­hib­ited.

²Every per­son has the right to per­son­al liberty and in par­tic­u­lar to phys­ic­al and men­tal in­teg­rity and to free­dom of move­ment.

³Tor­ture and any oth­er form of cruel, in­hu­man or de­grad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment are pro­hib­ited.

¹Chil­dren and young people have the right to the spe­cial pro­tec­tion of their in­teg­rity and to the en­cour­age­ment of their de­vel­op­ment.

²They may per­son­ally ex­er­cise their rights to the ex­tent that their power of judge­ment al­lows.

Per­sons in need and un­able to provide for them­selves have the right to as­sist­ance and care, and to the fin­an­cial means re­quired for a de­cent stand­ard of liv­ing.

¹Every per­son has the right to pri­vacy in their private and fam­ily life and in their home, and in re­la­tion to their mail and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions.

²Every per­son has the right to be pro­tec­ted against the mis­use of their per­son­al data.

The right to marry and to have a fam­ily is guar­an­teed.

¹Free­dom of re­li­gion and con­science is guar­an­teed.

²Every per­son has the right to choose freely their re­li­gion or their philo­soph­ic­al con­vic­tions, and to pro­fess them alone or in com­munity with oth­ers.

³Every per­son has the right to join or to be­long to a re­li­gious com­munity, and to fol­low re­li­gious teach­ings.

⁴No per­son may be forced to join or be­long to a re­li­gious com­munity, to par­ti­cip­ate in a re­li­gious act, or to fol­low re­li­gious teach­ings.

¹Free­dom of ex­pres­sion and of in­form­a­tion is guar­an­teed.

²Every per­son has the right freely to form, ex­press, and im­part their opin­ions.

³Every per­son has the right freely to re­ceive in­form­a­tion to gath­er it from gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible sources and to dis­sem­in­ate it.

¹Free­dom of the press, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion and of oth­er forms of dis­sem­in­a­tion of fea­tures and in­form­a­tion by means of pub­lic tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions is guar­an­teed.

²Cen­sor­ship is pro­hib­ited.

³The pro­tec­tion of sources is guar­an­teed.

The free­dom to use any lan­guage is guar­an­teed.

The right to an ad­equate and free ba­sic edu­ca­tion is guar­an­teed

Free­dom of re­search and teach­ing is guar­an­teed.

Free­dom of artist­ic ex­pres­sion is guar­an­teed.

¹Free­dom of as­sembly is guar­an­teed.

²Every per­son has the right to or­gan­ise meet­ings and to par­ti­cip­ate or not to par­ti­cip­ate in meet­ings.

¹Free­dom of as­so­ci­ation is guar­an­teed.

²Every per­son has the right to form, join or be­long to an as­so­ci­ation and to par­ti­cip­ate in the activ­it­ies of an as­so­ci­ation.

³No per­son may be com­pelled to join or to be­long to an as­so­ci­ation.

¹Swiss cit­izens have the right to es­tab­lish their dom­i­cile any­where in the coun­try.

²They have the right to leave or to enter Switzer­land.

¹Swiss cit­izens may not be ex­pelled from Switzer­land and may only be ex­tra­dited to a for­eign au­thor­ity with their con­sent.

²Refugees may not be de­por­ted or ex­tra­dited to a state in which they will be per­se­cuted.

³No per­son may be de­por­ted to a state in which they face the threat of tor­ture or any oth­er form of cruel or in­hu­mane treat­ment or pun­ish­ment.

¹The right to own prop­erty is guar­an­teed.

²The com­puls­ory pur­chase of prop­erty and any re­stric­tion on own­er­ship that is equi­val­ent to com­puls­ory pur­chase shall be com­pensated in full.

¹Eco­nom­ic free­dom is guar­an­teed.

²Eco­nom­ic free­dom in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the free­dom to choose an oc­cu­pa­tion as well as the free­dom to pur­sue a private eco­nom­ic activ­ity.

¹Em­ploy­ees, em­ploy­ers and their or­gan­isa­tions have the right to join to­geth­er in or­der to pro­tect their in­terests, to form as­so­ci­ations and to join or not to join such as­so­ci­ations.

²Dis­putes must wherever pos­sible be re­solved through ne­go­ti­ation or me­di­ation.

³Strikes and lock outs are per­mit­ted if they re­late to em­ploy­ment re­la­tions and if they do not con­tra­vene any re­quire­ments to pre­serve peace­ful em­ploy­ment re­la­tions or to con­duct con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings.

⁴The law may pro­hib­it cer­tain cat­egor­ies of per­son from tak­ing strike ac­tion.

¹Every per­son has the right to equal and fair treat­ment in ju­di­cial and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings and to have their case de­cided with­in a reas­on­able time.

²Each party to a case has the right to be heard.

³Any per­son who does not have suf­fi­cient means has the right to free leg­al ad­vice and as­sist­ance un­less their case ap­pears to have no pro­spect of suc­cess. If it is ne­ces­sary in or­der to safe­guard their rights, they also have the right to free leg­al rep­res­ent­a­tion in court.

In a leg­al dis­pute, every per­son has the right to have their case de­term­ined by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity. The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons may by law pre­clude the de­term­in­a­tion by the courts of cer­tain ex­cep­tion­al cat­egor­ies of case.

¹Any per­son whose case falls to be ju­di­cially de­cided has the right to have their case heard by a leg­ally con­sti­tuted, com­pet­ent, in­de­pend­ent and im­par­tial court. Ad hoc courts are pro­hib­ited.

²Un­less oth­er­wise provided by law, any per­son against whom civil pro­ceed­ings have been raised has the right to have their case de­cided by a court with­in the jur­is­dic­tion in which they reside.

³Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, court hear­ings and the de­liv­ery of judg­ments shall be in pub­lic.

¹No per­son may be de­prived of their liberty oth­er than in the cir­cum­stances and in the man­ner provided for by the law.

²Any per­son de­prived of their liberty has the right to be no­ti­fied without delay and in a lan­guage they can un­der­stand of the reas­ons for their de­ten­tion and of their rights. They must be giv­en the op­por­tun­ity to ex­er­cise their rights, in par­tic­u­lar, the right to have their next-of-kin in­formed.

³Any per­son in pre-tri­al de­ten­tion has the right to be brought be­fore a court without delay. The court de­cides wheth­er the per­son must re­main in de­ten­tion or be re­leased. Any per­son in pre-tri­al de­ten­tion has the right to have their case de­cided with­in a reas­on­able time.

⁴Any per­son who has been de­prived of their liberty by a body oth­er than a court has the right to have re­course to a court at any time. The court shall de­cide as quickly as pos­sible on the leg­al­ity of their de­ten­tion.

¹Every per­son is pre­sumed in­no­cent un­til they have been found guilty by a leg­ally en­force­able judg­ment.

²Every ac­cused per­son has the right to be no­ti­fied as quickly and com­pre­hens­ively as pos­sible of the charge brought against them. They must be giv­en the op­por­tun­ity to as­sert their rights to a prop­er de­fence.

³Every con­victed per­son has the right to have their con­vic­tion re­viewed by a high­er court, with the ex­cep­tion of cases in which the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court sits at first in­stance.

¹Every per­son has the right, without pre­ju­dice, to pe­ti­tion the au­thor­it­ies.

²The au­thor­it­ies must ac­know­ledge re­ceipt of such pe­ti­tions.

¹Polit­ic­al rights are guar­an­teed.

²The guar­an­tee of polit­ic­al rights pro­tects the free­dom of the cit­izen to form an opin­ion and to give genu­ine ex­pres­sion to his or her will.

¹Fun­da­ment­al rights must be up­held throughout the leg­al sys­tem.

²Who­ever acts on be­half of the state is bound by fun­da­ment­al rights and is un­der a duty to con­trib­ute to their im­ple­ment­a­tion.

³The au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that fun­da­ment­al rights, where ap­pro­pri­ate, ap­ply to re­la­tion­ships among private per­sons.

¹Re­stric­tions on fun­da­ment­al rights must have a leg­al basis. Sig­ni­fic­ant re­stric­tions must have their basis in a fed­er­al act. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply in cases of ser­i­ous and im­me­di­ate danger where no oth­er course of ac­tion is pos­sible.

²Re­stric­tions on fun­da­ment­al rights must be jus­ti­fied in the pub­lic in­terest or for the pro­tec­tion of the fun­da­ment­al rights of oth­ers.

³Any re­stric­tions on fun­da­ment­al rights must be pro­por­tion­ate.

⁴The es­sence of fun­da­ment­al rights is sac­rosanct.

¹Any per­son who is a cit­izen of a com­mune and of the Can­ton to which that com­mune be­longs is a Swiss cit­izen.

²No per­son may be giv­en pref­er­en­tial treat­ment or suf­fer pre­ju­dice be­cause of their cit­izen­ship. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to reg­u­la­tions on polit­ic­al rights in cit­izens' com­munes and cor­por­a­tions or to par­ti­cip­a­tion in the as­sets there­of, un­less can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion provides oth­er­wise.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall reg­u­late the ac­quis­i­tion and depriva­tion of cit­izen­ship by birth, mar­riage or ad­op­tion. It shall also reg­u­late the depriva­tion of Swiss cit­izen­ship on oth­er grounds, to­geth­er with the re­in­state­ment of cit­izen­ship.

²It shall le­gis­late on the min­im­um re­quire­ments for the nat­ur­al­isa­tion of for­eign na­tion­als by the Can­tons and grant nat­ur­al­isa­tion per­mits.

³It shall en­act sim­pli­fied reg­u­la­tions on the nat­ur­al­isa­tion of:

a.

third gen­er­a­tion im­mig­rants;

b.

state­less chil­dren.¹

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall reg­u­late the ex­er­cise of polit­ic­al rights in fed­er­al mat­ters, and the Can­tons shall reg­u­late their ex­er­cise at can­ton­al and com­mun­al mat­ters.

²Polit­ic­al rights are ex­er­cised in the com­mune in which a cit­izen resides, al­though the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons may provide for ex­cep­tions.

³No per­son may ex­er­cise their polit­ic­al rights con­tem­por­an­eously in more than one Can­ton.

⁴A Can­ton may provide that a per­son newly re­gistered as a res­id­ent may ex­er­cise the right to vote in can­ton­al and com­mun­al mat­ters only after a wait­ing peri­od of a max­im­um of three months of per­man­ent set­tle­ment.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­cour­age re­la­tions among the Swiss abroad and their re­la­tions with Switzer­land. It may sup­port or­gan­isa­tions that pur­sue this ob­ject­ive.

²It shall le­gis­late on the rights and ob­lig­a­tions of the Swiss abroad, in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to the ex­er­cise of polit­ic­al rights in the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the ful­fil­ment of the ob­lig­a­tion to per­form mil­it­ary or al­tern­at­ive ser­vice, wel­fare sup­port and so­cial se­cur­ity.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall, as a com­ple­ment to per­son­al re­spons­ib­il­ity and private ini­ti­at­ive, en­deav­our to en­sure that:

a.

every per­son has ac­cess to so­cial se­cur­ity;

b.

every per­son has ac­cess to the health care that they re­quire;

c.

fam­il­ies are pro­tec­ted and en­cour­aged as com­munit­ies of adults and chil­dren;

d.

every per­son who is fit to work can earn their liv­ing by work­ing un­der fair con­di­tions;

e.

any per­son seek­ing ac­com­mod­a­tion for them­selves and their fam­ily can find suit­able ac­com­mod­a­tion on reas­on­able terms;

f.

chil­dren and young people as well as per­sons of em­ploy­able age can ob­tain an edu­ca­tion and un­der­go ba­sic and ad­vanced train­ing in ac­cord­ance with their abil­it­ies;

g.

chil­dren and young people are en­cour­aged to de­vel­op in­to in­de­pend­ent and so­cially re­spons­ible people and are sup­por­ted in their so­cial, cul­tur­al and polit­ic­al in­teg­ra­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall en­deav­our to en­sure that every per­son is pro­tec­ted against the eco­nom­ic con­sequences of old-age, in­valid­ity, ill­ness, ac­ci­dent, un­em­ploy­ment, ma­ter­nity, be­ing orphaned and be­ing wid­owed.

³They shall en­deav­our to achieve these so­cial ob­ject­ives with­in the scope of their con­sti­tu­tion­al powers and the re­sources avail­able to them.

⁴No dir­ect right to state be­ne­fits may be es­tab­lished on the basis of these so­cial ob­ject­ives.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall ful­fil the du­ties that are as­signed to it by Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion.

²…¹

The Can­tons de­cide on the du­ties that they must ful­fil with­in the scope of their powers.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion only un­der­takes tasks that the Can­tons are un­able to per­form or which re­quire uni­form reg­u­la­tion by the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

²The col­lect­ive body that be­ne­fits from a pub­lic ser­vice bears the costs there­of.

³The col­lect­ive body that bears the costs of a pub­lic ser­vice may de­cide on the nature of that ser­vice.

⁴Uni­ver­sally provided ser­vices must made be avail­able to every per­son in a com­par­able man­ner.

⁵State tasks must be ful­filled eco­nom­ic­ally and in ac­cord­ance with de­mand.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall sup­port each oth­er in the ful­fil­ment of their du­ties and shall gen­er­ally co­oper­ate with each oth­er.

²They owe each oth­er a duty of con­sid­er­a­tion and sup­port. They shall provide each oth­er with ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance and mu­tu­al ju­di­cial as­sist­ance.

³Dis­putes between Can­tons or between Can­tons and the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall wherever pos­sible be re­solved by ne­go­ti­ation or me­di­ation.

¹In the cases spe­cified by the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, the Can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate in the fed­er­al de­cision mak­ing pro­cess, and in par­tic­u­lar in the le­gis­lat­ive pro­cess.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall in­form the Can­tons of its in­ten­tions fully and in good time. It shall con­sult the Can­tons where their in­terests are af­fected.

¹The Can­tons shall im­ple­ment fed­er­al law in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion and fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons may to­geth­er agree that the Can­tons should achieve spe­cif­ic goals in the im­ple­ment­a­tion of fed­er­al law and may to this end con­duct pro­grammes that re­ceive fin­an­cial sup­port from the Con­fed­er­a­tion.¹

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall al­low the Can­tons all pos­sible dis­cre­tion to or­gan­ise their own af­fairs and shall take ac­count of can­ton­al par­tic­u­lar­it­ies.²

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall re­spect the autonomy of the Can­tons.

²It shall leave the Can­tons suf­fi­cient tasks of their own and re­spect their or­gan­isa­tion­al autonomy. It shall leave the Can­tons with suf­fi­cient sources of fin­ance and con­trib­ute to­wards en­sur­ing that they have the fin­an­cial re­sources re­quired to ful­fil their tasks.¹

¹The Can­tons may enter in­to agree­ments with each oth­er and es­tab­lish com­mon or­gan­isa­tions and in­sti­tu­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, they may jointly un­der­take tasks of re­gion­al im­port­ance to­geth­er.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion may par­ti­cip­ate in such or­gan­isa­tions or in­sti­tu­tions with­in the scope of its powers.

³Agree­ments between Can­tons must not be con­trary to the law, to the in­terests of the Con­fed­er­a­tion or to the rights of oth­er Can­tons. The Con­fed­er­a­tion must be no­ti­fied of such agree­ments.

⁴The Can­tons may by in­ter­can­t­on­al agree­ment au­thor­ise in­ter­can­t­on­al bod­ies to is­sue le­gis­lat­ive pro­vi­sions that im­ple­ment an in­ter­can­t­on­al agree­ment, provided the agree­ment:

a.

has been ap­proved un­der the same pro­ced­ure that ap­plies to oth­er le­gis­la­tion;

b.

de­term­ines the ba­sic con­tent of the pro­vi­sions.¹

⁵The Can­tons shall com­ply with in­ter­can­t­on­al law.²

¹At the re­quest of in­ter­ested Can­tons, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may de­clare in­ter­can­t­on­al agree­ments to be gen­er­ally bind­ing or re­quire Can­tons to par­ti­cip­ate in in­ter­can­t­on­al agree­ments in the fol­low­ing fields:

a.

the ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al pen­al­ties and meas­ures;

b.²

school edu­ca­tion in the mat­ters spe­cified in Art­icle 62 para­graph 4;

c.³

can­ton­al in­sti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion;

d.

cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions of supra-re­gion­al im­port­ance;

e.

waste man­age­ment;

f.

waste wa­ter treat­ment;

g.

urb­an trans­port;

h.

ad­vanced med­ic­al sci­ence and spe­cial­ist clin­ics;

i.

in­sti­tu­tions for the re­hab­il­it­a­tion and care of in­val­ids.

²A de­clar­a­tion of gen­er­al ap­plic­a­tion is made in the form of a fed­er­al de­cree.

³The law shall spe­cify the re­quire­ments for a de­clar­a­tion of gen­er­al ap­plic­a­tion and for a par­ti­cip­a­tion re­quire­ment and reg­u­late the pro­ced­ure.

¹Fed­er­al law takes pre­ced­ence over any con­flict­ing pro­vi­sion of can­ton­al law.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that the Can­tons com­ply with fed­er­al law.

¹The autonomy of the com­munes is guar­an­teed in ac­cord­ance with can­ton­al law.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count in its activ­it­ies of the pos­sible con­sequences for the com­munes.

³In do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the spe­cial po­s­i­tion of the cit­ies and urb­an areas as well as the moun­tain re­gions.

¹Each Can­ton shall ad­opt a demo­crat­ic con­sti­tu­tion. This re­quires the ap­prov­al of the People and must be cap­able of be­ing re­vised if the ma­jor­ity of those eli­gible to vote so re­quest.

²Each can­ton­al con­sti­tu­tion shall re­quire the guar­an­tee of the Con­fed­er­a­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall guar­an­tee a con­sti­tu­tion provided it is not con­trary to fed­er­al law.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­tect the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der of the Can­tons.

²It shall in­ter­vene when pub­lic or­der in a Can­ton is dis­rup­ted or un­der threat and the Can­ton in ques­tion is not able to main­tain or­der alone or with the aid of oth­er Can­tons.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­tect the ex­ist­ence and ter­rit­ory of the Can­tons.

²Any change in the num­ber of Can­tons re­quires the con­sent of the cit­izens and the Can­tons con­cerned to­geth­er with the con­sent of the People and the Can­tons.

³Any change in ter­rit­ory between Can­tons re­quires the con­sent both of the Can­tons con­cerned and of their cit­izens as well as the ap­prov­al of the Fed­er­al As­sembly in the form of a Fed­er­al De­cree.

⁴Inter-can­ton­al bound­ary ad­just­ments may be made by agree­ment between the Can­tons con­cerned.

¹For­eign re­la­tions are the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that the in­de­pend­ence of Switzer­land and its wel­fare is safe­guarded; it shall in par­tic­u­lar as­sist in the al­le­vi­ation of need and poverty in the world and pro­mote re­spect for hu­man rights and demo­cracy, the peace­ful co-ex­ist­ence of peoples as well as the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources.

³It shall re­spect the powers of the Can­tons and pro­tect their in­terests.

¹The Can­tons shall be con­sul­ted on for­eign policy de­cisions that af­fect their powers or their es­sen­tial in­terests.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall in­form the Can­tons fully and in good time and shall con­sult with them.

³The views of the Can­tons are of par­tic­u­lar im­port­ance if their powers are af­fected. In such cases, the Can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate in in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­ations in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

¹A Can­ton may con­clude treat­ies with for­eign states on mat­ters that lie with­in the scope of its powers.

²Such treat­ies must not con­flict with the law or the in­terests of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, or with the law of any oth­er Can­tons. The Can­ton must in­form the Con­fed­er­a­tion be­fore con­clud­ing such a treaty.

³A Can­ton may deal dir­ectly with lower rank­ing for­eign au­thor­it­ies; in oth­er cases, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall con­duct re­la­tions with for­eign states on be­half of a Can­ton.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall with­in the scope of their powers en­sure the se­cur­ity of the coun­try and the pro­tec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion.

²They shall co­ordin­ate their ef­forts in the area of in­tern­al se­cur­ity.

¹Switzer­land shall have armed forces. In prin­ciple, the armed forces shall be or­gan­ised as a mi­li­tia.

²The armed forces serve to pre­vent war and to main­tain peace; they de­fend the coun­try and its pop­u­la­tion. They shall sup­port the ci­vil­ian au­thor­it­ies in safe­guard­ing the coun­try against ser­i­ous threats to in­tern­al se­cur­ity and in deal­ing with ex­cep­tion­al situ­ations. Fur­ther du­ties may be provided for by law.

³The de­ploy­ment of the armed forces is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.¹

¹Every Swiss man is re­quired to do mil­it­ary ser­vice. Al­tern­at­ive ci­vil­ian ser­vice shall be provided for by law.

²Mil­it­ary ser­vice is vol­un­tary for Swiss wo­men.

³Any Swiss man who does not do mil­it­ary or al­tern­at­ive ser­vice is li­able to pay a tax. This tax is levied by the Con­fed­er­a­tion and as­sessed and col­lec­ted by the Can­tons.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late for fair com­pens­a­tion for loss of in­come.

⁵Per­sons who suf­fer dam­age to their health or lose their lives while do­ing mil­it­ary or al­tern­at­ive ci­vil­ian ser­vice are en­titled to ap­pro­pri­ate sup­port from the Con­fed­er­a­tion, wheth­er for them­selves or for their next of kin.

¹Armed forces le­gis­la­tion, to­geth­er with the or­gan­isa­tion, train­ing and equip­ment of the armed forces, is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

²…¹

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion may, in re­turn for ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion, take over the run­ning of can­ton­al mil­it­ary in­stall­a­tions

¹The le­gis­la­tion on the civil de­fence of per­sons and prop­erty against the ef­fects of armed con­flicts is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the de­ploy­ment of civil de­fence units in the event of dis­asters and emer­gen­cies.

³It may de­clare civil de­fence ser­vice to be com­puls­ory for men. For wo­men, such ser­vice is vol­un­tary.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on fair com­pens­a­tion for loss of in­come.

⁵Per­sons who suf­fer dam­age to their health or lose their lives while do­ing civil de­fence ser­vice are en­titled to ap­pro­pri­ate sup­port from the Con­fed­er­a­tion, wheth­er for them­selves or for their next of kin.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall, with­in the scope of their powers, jointly en­sure the high qual­ity and ac­cess­ib­il­ity of the Swiss Edu­ca­tion Area.

²They shall co­ordin­ate their ef­forts and en­sure their co­oper­a­tion through joint ad­min­is­trat­ive bod­ies and oth­er meas­ures.

³They shall en­sure in the ful­fil­ment of their du­ties² that gen­er­al and vo­ca­tion­al courses of study achieve equal re­cog­ni­tion in so­ci­ety.

¹The Can­tons are re­spons­ible for the sys­tem of school edu­ca­tion.

²They shall en­sure the pro­vi­sion of an ad­equate ba­sic edu­ca­tion that is avail­able to all chil­dren. Ba­sic edu­ca­tion is man­dat­ory and is man­aged or su­per­vised by the state. At state schools it is free of charge.²

³The Can­tons shall en­sure that ad­equate spe­cial needs edu­ca­tion is provided to all chil­dren and young people with dis­ab­il­it­ies up to the age of 20.³

⁴Where har­mon­isa­tion of school edu­ca­tion is not achieved by means of co­ordin­a­tion in the areas of school entry age and com­puls­ory school at­tend­ance, the dur­a­tion and ob­ject­ives of levels of edu­ca­tion, and the trans­ition for one level to an­oth­er, as well as the re­cog­ni­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions to achieve such har­mon­isa­tion.⁴

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall reg­u­late the start of the school year.⁵

⁶The Can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate in the draft­ing of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on school edu­ca­tion that af­fects can­ton­al re­spons­ib­il­it­ies, and spe­cial ac­count shall be taken of their opin­ions.⁶

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on vo­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing.

²It shall en­cour­age the pro­vi­sion of a di­verse and ac­cess­ible range of courses in vo­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall man­age the Fed­er­al In­sti­tutes of Tech­no­logy. It may es­tab­lish, take over or man­age ad­di­tion­al uni­versit­ies and oth­er high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

²It shall sup­port the can­ton­al uni­versit­ies and may make fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tions to oth­er high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions that it re­cog­nises.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons are jointly re­spons­ible for the co­ordin­a­tion and guar­an­tee of qual­ity in Swiss high­er edu­ca­tion. In ful­filling this re­spons­ib­il­ity, they shall take ac­count of the autonomy of the uni­versit­ies and the vari­ous bod­ies re­spons­ible for them and en­sure the equal treat­ment of in­sti­tu­tions with the same func­tions.

⁴In or­der to ful­fil their du­ties, the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall enter in­to agree­ments and del­eg­ate cer­tain powers to joint ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies. The law shall reg­u­late the powers that may be del­eg­ated, and de­term­ine the prin­ciples gov­ern­ing the or­gan­isa­tion of and pro­ced­ures for co­ordin­a­tion.

⁵If the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons fail to reach their com­mon goals by means of co­ordin­a­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on levels of stud­ies and the trans­ition from one level to an­oth­er, on post­gradu­ate edu­ca­tion and on the re­cog­ni­tion of in­sti­tu­tions and qual­i­fic­a­tions. In ad­di­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may im­pose stand­ard fund­ing prin­ciples for sub­sid­ising of uni­versit­ies, and may make sub­sidies con­tin­gent on uni­versit­ies shar­ing par­tic­u­larly cost-in­tens­ive activ­it­ies.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­mote sci­entif­ic re­search and in­nov­a­tion.¹

²It may make its sup­port con­di­tion­al in par­tic­u­lar on qual­ity as­sur­ance and co­ordin­a­tion be­ing guar­an­teed.²

³It may es­tab­lish, take over or run re­search in­sti­tutes.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall spe­cify prin­ciples gov­ern­ing con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing.

²It may pro­mote con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing.

³The law shall spe­cify the fields of and the cri­ter­ia for such pro­mo­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall com­pile the ne­ces­sary stat­ist­ic­al data on the status and trends in the pop­u­la­tion, the eco­nomy, so­ci­ety, edu­ca­tion, re­search, the land and the en­vir­on­ment in Switzer­land.¹

²It may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the har­mon­isa­tion and main­ten­ance of of­fi­cial re­gisters in or­der to re­duce the cost of com­pil­ing data.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may con­trib­ute to can­ton­al ex­pendit­ure on grants provided to stu­dents at uni­versit­ies and high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions. It may en­cour­age the in­ter­can­t­on­al har­mon­isa­tion of edu­ca­tion grants and lay down prin­ciples for the pay­ment of edu­ca­tion grants.²

²It may also sup­ple­ment can­ton­al meas­ures while pre­serving can­ton­al autonomy in edu­ca­tion mat­ters by tak­ing its own meas­ures to pro­mote edu­ca­tion.

¹In ful­filling their du­ties, the Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall take ac­count of the spe­cial need of chil­dren and young people to re­ceive en­cour­age­ment and pro­tec­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion may sup­ple­ment can­ton­al meas­ures by sup­port­ing ex­tra-cur­ricular work with chil­dren and young people.²

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall en­cour­age mu­sic­al edu­ca­tion, in par­tic­u­lar that of chil­dren and young people.

²They shall en­deav­our with­in the scope of their powers to en­sure high-qual­ity mu­sic teach­ing in schools. If the Can­tons are un­able to har­mon­ise the goals of mu­sic teach­ing in schools by means of co­ordin­a­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue the re­quired reg­u­la­tions.

³In con­sulta­tion with the Can­tons, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall set out prin­ciples to help young people to en­gage in mu­sic­al activ­it­ies and to en­cour­age mu­sic­ally gif­ted per­sons.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­cour­age sport, and in par­tic­u­lar edu­ca­tion in sport.

²It shall op­er­ate a sports school.

³It may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on sport for young people and de­clare the teach­ing of sport in schools to be com­puls­ory.

¹Cul­tur­al mat­ters are a can­ton­al re­spons­ib­il­ity.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion may sup­port cul­tur­al activ­it­ies of na­tion­al in­terest as well as art and mu­sic, in par­tic­u­lar in the field of edu­ca­tion.

³In the ful­fil­ment of its du­ties, it shall take ac­count of the cul­tur­al and lin­guist­ic di­versity of the coun­try.

¹The of­fi­cial lan­guages of the Con­fed­er­a­tion are Ger­man, French and Itali­an. Ro­man­sh is also an of­fi­cial lan­guage of the Con­fed­er­a­tion when com­mu­nic­at­ing with per­sons who speak Ro­man­sh.

²The Can­tons shall de­cide on their of­fi­cial lan­guages. In or­der to pre­serve har­mony between lin­guist­ic com­munit­ies, the Can­tons shall re­spect the tra­di­tion­al ter­rit­ori­al dis­tri­bu­tion of lan­guages and take ac­count of in­di­gen­ous lin­guist­ic minor­it­ies.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall en­cour­age un­der­stand­ing and ex­change between the lin­guist­ic com­munit­ies.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port the pluri­lin­gual Can­tons in the ful­fil­ment of their spe­cial du­ties.

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port meas­ures by the Can­tons of Graubünden and Ti­cino to pre­serve and pro­mote the Ro­man­sh and the Itali­an lan­guages.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may en­cour­age Swiss film pro­duc­tion and film cul­ture.

²It may is­sue reg­u­la­tions to pro­mote the di­versity and the qual­ity of the cine­ma­to­graph­ic works that are offered.

¹The reg­u­la­tion of the re­la­tion­ship between the church and the state is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Can­tons.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons may with­in the scope of their powers take meas­ures to pre­serve pub­lic peace between the mem­bers of dif­fer­ent re­li­gious com­munit­ies.

³The con­struc­tion of min­arets is pro­hib­ited.¹

The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall en­deav­our to achieve a bal­anced and sus­tain­able re­la­tion­ship between nature and its ca­pa­city to re­new it­self and the de­mands placed on it by the pop­u­la­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the pro­tec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion and its nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment against dam­age or nuis­ance.

²It shall en­sure that such dam­age or nuis­ance is avoided. The costs of avoid­ing or elim­in­at­ing such dam­age or nuis­ance are borne by those re­spons­ible for caus­ing it.

³The Can­tons are re­spons­ible for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions, ex­cept where the law re­serves this duty for the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall lay down prin­ciples on spa­tial plan­ning. These prin­ciples are bind­ing on the Can­tons and serve to en­sure the ap­pro­pri­ate and eco­nom­ic use of the land and its prop­erly ordered set­tle­ment.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­cour­age and co­ordin­ate the ef­forts of the Can­tons and shall co­oper­ate with them.

³Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall take ac­count of the re­quire­ments of spa­tial plan­ning in ful­filling their du­ties.

¹The Na­tion­al Land Sur­vey is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on of­fi­cial sur­vey­ing.

³It may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the har­mon­isa­tion of of­fi­cial in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to the land.

¹No more than 20 per cent of the total stock of res­id­en­tial units and the gross res­id­en­tial floor area in any com­mune may be used as second homes.

²The law shall re­quire com­munes to pub­lish their first home per­cent­age plan and a de­tailed re­port on its im­ple­ment­a­tion every year.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall with­in the scope of its powers en­sure the eco­nom­ic use and the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter re­sources and provide pro­tec­tion against the harm­ful ef­fects of wa­ter.

²It shall lay down prin­ciples on the con­ser­va­tion and ex­ploit­a­tion of wa­ter re­sources, the use of wa­ter for the pro­duc­tion of en­ergy and for cool­ing pur­poses, as well as on oth­er meas­ures af­fect­ing the wa­ter-cycle.

³It shall le­gis­late on wa­ter pro­tec­tion, on en­sur­ing ap­pro­pri­ate re­sid­ual flow, on hy­draul­ic en­gin­eer­ing and the safety of dams, and on meas­ures that in­flu­ence pre­cip­it­a­tion.

⁴The Can­tons shall man­age their wa­ter re­sources. They may levy charges for the use of wa­ter, sub­ject to the lim­its im­posed by fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion has the right to use wa­ter for its trans­port op­er­a­tions sub­ject to pay­ment of a charge and com­pens­a­tion.

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion, in con­sulta­tion with the Can­tons con­cerned, shall de­cide on rights to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter re­sources and the charges for them. If Can­tons are un­able to agree on rights to in­ter­can­t­on­al wa­ter re­sources, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall de­cide.

⁶The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count of the con­cerns of the Can­tons where the wa­ter ori­gin­ates in ful­filling its du­ties.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that the forests are able to ful­fil their pro­tect­ive, com­mer­cial and pub­lic amen­ity func­tions.

²It shall lay down prin­ciples on the pro­tec­tion of the forests.

³It shall en­cour­age meas­ures for the con­ser­va­tion of the forests.

¹The pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Can­tons.

²In the ful­fil­ment of its du­ties, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count of con­cerns for the pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age. It shall pro­tect the coun­tryside and places of ar­chi­tec­tur­al, his­tor­ic­al, nat­ur­al or cul­tur­al in­terest; it shall pre­serve such places in­tact if re­quired to do so in the pub­lic in­terest.

³It may sup­port ef­forts made for the pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age and ac­quire or pre­serve prop­er­ties of na­tion­al im­port­ance by con­tract or through com­puls­ory pur­chase.

⁴It shall le­gis­late on the pro­tec­tion of an­im­al and plant life and on the pre­ser­va­tion of their nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and their di­versity. It shall pro­tect en­dangered spe­cies from ex­tinc­tion.

⁵Moors and wet­lands of spe­cial beauty and na­tion­al im­port­ance shall be pre­served. No build­ings may be built on them and no changes may be made to the land, ex­cept for the con­struc­tion of fa­cil­it­ies that serve the pro­tec­tion of the moors or wet­lands or their con­tin­ued use for ag­ri­cul­tur­al pur­poses.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall lay down prin­ciples on fish­ing and hunt­ing and in par­tic­u­lar on the pre­ser­va­tion of the di­versity of fish spe­cies, wild mam­mals and birds.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the pro­tec­tion of an­im­als.

²It shall in par­tic­u­lar reg­u­late:

a.

the keep­ing and care of an­im­als;

b.

ex­per­i­ments on an­im­als and pro­ced­ures car­ried out on liv­ing an­im­als;

c.

the use of an­im­als;

d.

the im­port of an­im­als and an­im­al products;

e.

the trade in an­im­als and the trans­port of an­im­als;

f.

the killing of an­im­als.

³The en­force­ment of the reg­u­la­tions is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Can­tons, ex­cept where the law re­serves this to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may in the in­terests of the coun­try as a whole or a large part of it carry out and op­er­ate pub­lic con­struc­tion works, or provide sup­port for such con­struc­tion works.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall en­sure that an ad­equate range of pub­lic trans­port ser­vices is provided on rail, roads, wa­ter and by cable­way in all re­gions of the coun­try. In do­ing so, ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count must be taken of the in­terests of rail freight trans­port.

²The costs of pub­lic trans­port shall be covered to an ap­pro­pri­ate ex­tent by the prices paid by users.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on road trans­port.

²It shall ex­er­cise over­sight over roads of na­tion­al im­port­ance; it may de­cide which trans­it roads must re­main open to traffic.

³Pub­lic roads may be used free of charge. The Fed­er­al As­sembly may au­thor­ise ex­cep­tions.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall en­sure that there is ad­equate road in­fra­struc­ture in all re­gions of the coun­try.

2 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure the con­struc­tion of a net­work of na­tion­al high­ways and guar­an­tee that they re­main useable. It shall con­struct, op­er­ate and main­tain the na­tion­al high­ways. It shall bear the costs there­of. It may as­sign this task wholly or partly to pub­lic or private bod­ies or com­bined pub­lic-private bod­ies.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­tect the Alpine re­gion from the neg­at­ive ef­fects of trans­it traffic. It shall lim­it the nuis­ance caused by trans­it traffic to a level that is not harm­ful to people, an­im­als and plants or their hab­it­ats.

²Transalpine goods traffic shall be trans­por­ted from bor­der to bor­der by rail. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take the meas­ures re­quired. Ex­cep­tions are per­mit­ted only when there is no al­tern­at­ive. They must be spe­cified in de­tail in a fed­er­al act.

³The ca­pa­city of the trans­it routes in the Alpine re­gion may not be in­creased. This does not ap­ply to by-pass roads that re­duce the level of trans­it traffic in towns and vil­lages.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may levy a ca­pa­city or mileage-re­lated charge on heavy vehicle traffic where such traffic cre­ates pub­lic costs that are not covered by oth­er charges or taxes.

²The net rev­en­ue from the charge shall be used to cov­er the costs in­curred in con­nec­tion with over­land trans­port.²

³The Can­tons are en­titled to a share of the net rev­en­ue. In the as­sess­ment of the shares al­loc­ated, the par­tic­u­lar con­sequences that levy­ing the charge have for moun­tain­ous and re­mote re­gions shall be taken in­to ac­count.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall levy a charge for the use of the na­tion­al high­ways by mo­tor vehicles and trail­ers that are not li­able to pay the heavy vehicle charge.

¹A fund shall be set up to fin­ance the na­tion­al high­ways and con­tri­bu­tions to­wards meas­ures to im­prove the road trans­port in­fra­struc­ture in cit­ies and urb­an areas.

²The fol­low­ing mon­ies shall be al­loc­ated to the fund:

a.

the net pro­ceeds of the na­tion­al high­ways charge in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 85a;

b.

the net pro­ceeds of the spe­cial con­sump­tion tax in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 1 let­ter d;

c.

the net pro­ceeds of the sur­charge in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 2 let­ter a;

d.

the net pro­ceeds of the charge in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 2 let­ter b;

e.

a per­cent­age of the net pro­ceeds from the con­sump­tion tax on all mo­tor fuels, with the ex­cep­tion of avi­ation fuels, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 1 let­ter e; this shall amount to 9 per cent each of the net pro­ceeds un­der let­ter c and 9 per cent of one half of the net pro­ceeds of the con­sump­tion tax on all mo­tor fuels, with the ex­cep­tion of avi­ation fuels, but no more than 310 mil­lion francs per year; the in­dex­a­tion of this amount shall be reg­u­lated by law;

f.

in gen­er­al, 10 per cent of the net pro­ceeds of con­sump­tion tax on all mo­tor fuels, with the ex­cep­tion of avi­ation fuels, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 1 let­ter e;

g.³

…

h.

oth­er mon­ies al­loc­ated by law in con­nec­tion with road trans­port.

³A spe­cial fin­ance pro­gramme shall be ad­min­istered for the fol­low­ing tasks and costs in con­nec­tion with road trans­port:

a.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards meas­ures to pro­mote com­bined trans­port and the trans­port of mo­tor vehicles and drivers;

b.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards the cost of main roads;

c.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards pro­tect­ive struc­tures to pre­vent nat­ur­al dis­asters and meas­ures to pro­tect the en­vir­on­ment and coun­tryside from the ef­fects of road traffic;

d.

gen­er­al con­tri­bu­tions to­wards the costs in­curred by the Can­tons for roads open to mo­tor vehicles;

e.

con­tri­bu­tions to Can­tons without na­tion­al high­ways;

f.

re­search and ad­min­is­tra­tion;

g.⁴

…

⁴The spe­cial fin­ance pro­gramme shall be al­loc­ated one half of the net pro­ceeds of the con­sump­tion tax on all mo­tor fuels, with the ex­cep­tion of avi­ation fuels, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 1 let­ter e, un­der de­duc­tion of the mon­ies un­der para­graph 2 let­ter e.

⁵Where the spe­cial fin­ance pro­gramme has a proven need and in or­der to form ap­pro­pri­ate re­serves in the spe­cial fin­ance pro­gramme, pro­ceeds from the con­sump­tion tax in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 131 para­graph 1 let­ter d shall be al­loc­ated to the spe­cial fin­ance pro­gramme in­stead of the fund.

The le­gis­la­tion on rail trans­port, cable­ways, ship­ping, avi­ation and space travel is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall bear the prin­cip­al bur­den of fin­an­cing rail­way in­fra­struc­ture.

²Rail­way in­fra­struc­ture shall be fin­anced from a fund. The fol­low­ing re­sources shall be al­loc­ated to the fund:

a.

a max­im­um of two thirds of the rev­en­ue from the heavy vehicle charge un­der Art­icle 85;

b.

the rev­en­ue from the in­crease in value ad­ded tax un­der Art­icle 130 para­graph 3^bis;

c.

2.0 per cent of the re­ceipts from the dir­ect fed­er­al tax­a­tion of private in­di­vidu­als;

d.

2,300 mil­lion francs each year from the gen­er­al fed­er­al budget; the in­dex­a­tion of this amount shall be reg­u­lated by law.

³The Can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate ap­pro­pri­ately in the fin­an­cing of rail­way in­fra­struc­ture. The de­tails shall be reg­u­lated by law.

⁴The law may provide for ad­di­tion­al fin­an­cing from third parties.

One half of the net pro­ceeds of the con­sump­tion tax on avi­ation fuels and the sur­charge on the con­sump­tion tax on avi­ation fuels shall be used for the fol­low­ing tasks and costs in con­nec­tion with air traffic:

a.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures made ne­ces­sary by air traffic;

b.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards se­cur­ity meas­ures to pro­tect against un­law­ful acts against air traffic, and in par­tic­u­lar against ter­ror­ist at­tacks and the hi­jack­ing of air­craft, in­so­far as such meas­ures are not the re­spons­ib­il­ity of na­tion­al au­thor­it­ies;

c.

con­tri­bu­tions to­wards meas­ures to en­sure a high tech­nic­al level of safety in air traffic.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall lay down prin­ciples with re­gard to the net­work of foot­paths, hik­ing trails and cycle paths.

²It may sup­port and co­ordin­ate can­ton­al meas­ures to con­struct and main­tain such net­works and to provide in­form­a­tion about them. In do­ing so, it shall re­spect the powers of the can­tons.

³It shall take ac­count of these net­works in the ful­fil­ment of its du­ties. It shall re­place paths and trails that it has to close.

¹With­in the scope of their powers, the Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall en­deav­our to en­sure a suf­fi­cient, di­verse, safe, eco­nom­ic and en­vir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able en­ergy sup­ply as well as the eco­nom­ic and ef­fi­cient use of en­ergy.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall es­tab­lish prin­ciples on the use of loc­al and re­new­able en­ergy sources and on the eco­nom­ic and ef­fi­cient use of en­ergy.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the use of en­ergy by in­stall­a­tions, vehicles and ap­pli­ances. It shall en­cour­age the de­vel­op­ment of en­ergy tech­no­lo­gies, in par­tic­u­lar in the fields of sav­ing en­ergy and the re­new­able en­ergy sources.

⁴The Can­tons shall be primar­ily re­spons­ible for meas­ures re­lat­ing to the use of en­ergy in build­ings.

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count in its en­ergy policy of the ef­forts made by the Can­tons, the com­munes and the busi­ness com­munity; it shall take ac­count of the con­di­tions in the in­di­vidu­al re­gions of the coun­try and the lim­it­a­tions of what is eco­nom­ic­ally feas­ible.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion in the field of nuc­le­ar en­ergy.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the trans­port and the sup­ply of elec­tric­al en­ergy.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion on trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­bu­tion sys­tems for the trans­port of li­quid or gaseous fuels.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure the ad­equate, uni­ver­sal and reas­on­ably priced pro­vi­sion of postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices in all re­gions of the coun­try. The rates shall be fixed ac­cord­ing to stand­ard prin­ciples.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion on ra­dio and tele­vi­sion as well as on oth­er forms of pub­lic broad­cast­ing of fea­tures and in­form­a­tion.

²Ra­dio and tele­vi­sion shall con­trib­ute to edu­ca­tion and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, to the free shap­ing of opin­ion and to en­ter­tain­ment. They shall take ac­count of the par­tic­u­lar­it­ies of the coun­try and the needs of the Can­tons. They shall present events ac­cur­ately and al­low a di­versity of opin­ions to be ex­pressed ap­pro­pri­ately.

³The in­de­pend­ence of ra­dio and tele­vi­sion as well as their autonomy in de­cid­ing on pro­gram­ming is guar­an­teed.

⁴Ac­count must be taken of the role and du­ties of oth­er me­dia, in par­tic­u­lar the press.

⁵Com­plaints about pro­grammes may be sub­mit­ted to an in­de­pend­ent com­plaints au­thor­ity.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall abide by the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom.

²They shall safe­guard the in­terests of the Swiss eco­nomy as a whole and, to­geth­er with the private sec­tor, shall con­trib­ute to the wel­fare and eco­nom­ic se­cur­ity of the pop­u­la­tion.

³They shall en­deav­our with­in the scope of their powers to cre­ate fa­vour­able gen­er­al con­di­tions for the private sec­tor.

⁴Any di­ver­gence from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom, and in par­tic­u­lar meas­ures de­signed to re­strain com­pet­i­tion, shall be per­mit­ted only if they are provided for in the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion or based on can­ton­al mono­poly rights.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may le­gis­late on pro­fes­sion­al activ­it­ies in the private sec­tor.

²It shall seek to cre­ate a uni­fied Swiss eco­nom­ic area. It shall guar­an­tee that per­sons with an aca­dem­ic qual­i­fic­a­tion or with a fed­er­al or can­ton­al edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion or an edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion re­cog­nised by a Can­ton are able to prac­tise their pro­fes­sion throughout Switzer­land.

³For the pro­tec­tion of the eco­nomy, private prop­erty and share­hold­ers, and to guar­an­tee sus­tain­able cor­por­ate gov­ernance, the law shall reg­u­late Swiss com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares lis­ted on stock ex­changes in Switzer­land or abroad in ac­cord­ance with the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

the gen­er­al meet­ing votes on an an­nu­al basis on the total amount of all re­mu­ner­a­tion (money and the value of be­ne­fits in kind) giv­en to the board of dir­ect­ors, the ex­ec­ut­ive board and the board of ad­visors. It elects on an an­nu­al basis the pres­id­ent of the board of dir­ect­ors, the in­di­vidu­al mem­bers of the board of dir­ect­ors and the re­mu­ner­a­tion com­mit­tee, and the in­de­pend­ent rep­res­ent­at­ives of vot­ing rights. Pen­sion funds vote in the in­terests of their in­sured mem­bers and dis­close how they have voted. Share­hold­ers may vote re­motely on­line; they may not be rep­res­en­ted by a gov­ern­ing of­ficer of the com­pany or by a cus­todi­an bank;

b.

the gov­ern­ing of­ficers may not be giv­en sev­er­ance or sim­il­ar pay­ments, ad­vance pay­ments, bo­nuses for com­pany pur­chases and sales, ad­di­tion­al con­tracts as con­sult­ants to or em­ploy­ees of oth­er com­pan­ies in the group. The man­age­ment of the com­pany may not be del­eg­ated to a leg­al en­tity;

c.

the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation reg­u­late the amount of cred­its, loans and pen­sions pay­able to gov­ern­ing of­ficers, their profit-shar­ing and equity par­ti­cip­a­tion plans and the num­ber of man­dates they may ac­cept out­side the group, as well as the dur­a­tion of em­ploy­ment con­tracts of mem­bers of the ex­ec­ut­ive board;

d.

per­sons vi­ol­at­ing the pro­vi­sions un­der let­ters a-c are li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years and to a mon­et­ary pen­alty not ex­ceed­ing six times their an­nu­al re­mu­ner­a­tion.²

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late against the dam­aging ef­fects in eco­nom­ic or so­cial terms of car­tels and oth­er re­straints on com­pet­i­tion.

²It shall take meas­ures:

a.

to pre­vent ab­uses in price main­ten­ance by dom­in­ant un­der­tak­ings and private and pub­lic law or­gan­isa­tions;

b.

against un­fair com­pet­i­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take meas­ures to pro­tect con­sumers.

²It shall le­gis­late on the leg­al rem­ed­ies avail­able to con­sumer or­gan­isa­tions. These or­gan­isa­tions shall have the same rights un­der the fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on un­fair com­pet­i­tion as pro­fes­sion­al and trade as­so­ci­ations.

³The Can­tons shall provide a con­cili­ation pro­ced­ure or a simple and rap­id court pro­ced­ure for claims of up to a cer­tain sum. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines this sum.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the bank­ing and stock ex­change sys­tem; in do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the spe­cial func­tion and role of the can­ton­al banks.

²It may le­gis­late on fin­an­cial ser­vices in oth­er fields.

³It shall le­gis­late on private in­sur­ance.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for money and cur­rency; the Con­fed­er­a­tion has the ex­clus­ive right to is­sue coins and bank­notes.

²The Swiss Na­tion­al Bank, as an in­de­pend­ent cent­ral bank, shall pur­sue a mon­et­ary policy that serves the over­all in­terests of the coun­try; it shall be ad­min­istered with the co­oper­a­tion and un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

³The Swiss Na­tion­al Bank shall cre­ate suf­fi­cient cur­rency re­serves from its rev­en­ues; part of these re­serves shall be held in gold.

⁴A min­im­um of two thirds of the net profits made by the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank shall be al­loc­ated to the Can­tons.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take meas­ures to achieve bal­anced eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, and in par­tic­u­lar to pre­vent and com­bat un­em­ploy­ment and in­fla­tion.

²It shall take ac­count of eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in in­di­vidu­al re­gions of the coun­try. It shall co­oper­ate with the Can­tons and the busi­ness com­munity.

³In the field of money and bank­ing, in for­eign eco­nom­ic af­fairs and in the field of pub­lic fin­ance, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may if ne­ces­sary de­part from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Can­tons and the com­munes shall take ac­count of the eco­nom­ic situ­ation in their rev­en­ue and ex­pendit­ure policies.

⁵To sta­bil­ise the eco­nom­ic situ­ation, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may tem­por­ar­ily levy sur­charges or grant re­bates on fed­er­al taxes and du­ties. The ac­cu­mu­lated funds must be held in re­serve; fol­low­ing their re­lease, dir­ect taxes shall be in­di­vidu­ally re­fun­ded, and in­dir­ect taxes used to grant re­bates or to cre­ate jobs.

⁶The Con­fed­er­a­tion may ob­lige busi­nesses to ac­cu­mu­late re­serves for the cre­ation of jobs; it shall for this pur­pose grant tax con­ces­sions and may re­quire the Can­tons to do the same. Fol­low­ing the re­lease of the re­serves, busi­nesses shall be free to de­cide how the funds are ap­plied with­in the scope of the uses per­mit­ted by law.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall safe­guard the in­terests of the Swiss eco­nomy abroad.

²In spe­cial cases, it may take meas­ures to pro­tect the do­mest­ic eco­nomy. In do­ing so, it may if ne­ces­sary de­part from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that the coun­try is sup­plied with es­sen­tial goods and ser­vices in the event of the threat of politico-mil­it­ary strife or war, or of severe short­ages that the eco­nomy can­not by it­self coun­ter­act. It shall take pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ures to ad­dress these mat­ters.

²In ex­er­cising its powers un­der this Art­icle, it may if ne­ces­sary de­part from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may sup­port re­gions of the coun­try that are un­der eco­nom­ic threat and pro­mote spe­cif­ic eco­nom­ic sec­tors and pro­fes­sions, if reas­on­able self-help meas­ures are in­suf­fi­cient to en­sure their ex­ist­ence. In ex­er­cising its powers un­der this Art­icle, it may if ne­ces­sary de­part from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, by means of a sus­tain­able and mar­ket ori­ented pro­duc­tion policy, makes an es­sen­tial con­tri­bu­tion to­wards:

a.

the re­li­able pro­vi­sion of the pop­u­la­tion with food­stuffs;

b.

the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources and the up­keep of the coun­tryside;

c.

de­cent­ral­ised pop­u­la­tion set­tle­ment of the coun­try.

²In ad­di­tion to the self-help meas­ures that can reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted in the ag­ri­cul­ture sec­tor and if ne­ces­sary in derog­a­tion from the prin­ciple of eco­nom­ic free­dom, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port farms that cul­tiv­ate the land.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall or­gan­ise meas­ures in such a man­ner that the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor ful­fils its multi-func­tion­al du­ties. It has in par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing powers and du­ties:

a.

sup­ple­ment­ing rev­en­ues from ag­ri­cul­ture by means of dir­ect sub­sidies in or­der to achieve of fair and ad­equate re­mu­ner­a­tion for the ser­vices provided, sub­ject to proof of com­pli­ance with eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments;

b.

en­cour­aging by means of eco­nom­ic­ally ad­vant­age­ous in­cent­ives meth­ods of pro­duc­tion that are spe­cific­ally near-nat­ur­al and re­spect­ful of both the en­vir­on­ment and live­stock;

c.

le­gis­lat­ing on de­clar­a­tions of ori­gin, qual­ity, pro­duc­tion meth­ods and pro­cessing pro­ced­ures for food­stuffs;

d.

pro­tect­ing the en­vir­on­ment against the det­ri­ment­al ef­fects of the ex­cess­ive use of fer­til­isers, chem­ic­als and oth­er aux­il­i­ary agents;

e.

at its dis­cre­tion, en­cour­aging ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search, coun­selling and edu­ca­tion and sub­sid­ise in­vest­ments;

f.

at its dis­cre­tion, le­gis­lat­ing on the con­sol­id­a­tion of ag­ri­cul­tur­al prop­erty hold­ings.

⁴For these pur­poses, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall provide both funds ear­marked for the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and gen­er­al fed­er­al funds.

In or­der to guar­an­tee the sup­ply of food to the pop­u­la­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall cre­ate the con­di­tions re­quired for:

a.

safe­guard­ing the basis for ag­ri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, and ag­ri­cul­tur­al land in par­tic­u­lar;

b.

food pro­duc­tion that is ad­ap­ted to loc­al con­di­tions and which uses nat­ur­al re­sources ef­fi­ciently;

c.

an ag­ri­cul­ture and food sec­tor that re­sponds to mar­ket re­quire­ments;

d.

cross-bor­der trade re­la­tions that con­trib­ute to the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of the ag­ri­cul­ture and food sec­tor;

e.

us­ing food in a way that con­serves nat­ur­al re­sources.

The le­gis­la­tion on the man­u­fac­ture, im­port, rec­ti­fic­a­tion and sale of al­co­hol ob­tained by dis­til­la­tion is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall in par­tic­u­lar take ac­count of the harm­ful ef­fects of al­co­hol con­sump­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on gambling; in do­ing so it shall take ac­count of can­ton­al in­terests.

²A li­cence from the Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­quired in or­der to es­tab­lish and op­er­ate a casino. In grant­ing such a li­cence, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count of re­gion­al cir­cum­stances. It shall levy a rev­en­ue-re­lated tax on casi­nos; this tax must not ex­ceed 80 per cent of the gross rev­en­ues from gambling. It shall be used to fund the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance.

³The can­tons are re­spons­ible for grant­ing li­cences for and su­per­vising the fol­low­ing:

a.

gambling activ­it­ies that are avail­able to an un­lim­ited num­ber of people, are offered at more than one loc­a­tion and which are based on the same ran­dom draw or a sim­il­ar pro­ced­ure; the fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the jack­pot sys­tems in casi­nos;

b.

bet­ting on sports;

c.

games of skill.

⁴Para­graphs 2 and 3 also ap­ply to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions-based gambling.

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall take ac­count of the dangers of gambling. They shall en­sure that ap­pro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion is provided through le­gis­la­tion and su­per­vis­ory meas­ures and in do­ing so shall take ac­count of the dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the games and the form and loc­a­tion of the gambling op­por­tun­ity offered.

⁶The can­tons shall en­sure that the net rev­en­ues from gambling in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ters a and b are used in their en­tirety for char­it­able pur­poses, in par­tic­u­lar in the fields of cul­ture, so­cial pro­jects and sport.

⁷The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall co­ordin­ate their ef­forts to ful­fil their tasks. To this end the law shall es­tab­lish a joint body, one half of whose mem­bers shall be from the fed­er­al im­ple­ment­ing bod­ies and the oth­er half from the can­ton­al im­ple­ment­ing bod­ies.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late against mis­use of weapons and their ac­cessor­ies and am­muni­tion.

²It shall le­gis­late on the man­u­fac­ture, pro­cure­ment and sale of war ma­ter­i­al as well as the im­port, ex­port and trans­it of such ma­ter­i­al.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­cour­age the con­struc­tion of hous­ing, the ac­quis­i­tion of the own­er­ship of apart­ments and houses for the per­son­al use of private in­di­vidu­als, as well as the activ­it­ies of de­velopers and or­gan­isa­tions in­volved in the con­struc­tion of pub­lic util­ity hous­ing.

²It shall en­cour­age in par­tic­u­lar the ac­quis­i­tion and de­vel­op­ment of land for the con­struc­tion of hous­ing, in­creased ef­fi­ciency in con­struc­tion and the re­duc­tion of con­struc­tion and hous­ing costs.

³It may le­gis­late on the de­vel­op­ment of land for hous­ing con­struc­tion and on in­creas­ing the ef­fi­ciency of con­struc­tion.

⁴In do­ing so, it shall take par­tic­u­lar ac­count of the in­terests of fam­il­ies, eld­erly per­sons, per­sons on low in­comes and per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late against ab­uses in ten­ancy mat­ters, and in par­tic­u­lar against un­fair rents, as well as on the pro­ced­ure for chal­len­ging un­law­fully ter­min­ated leases and the lim­ited ex­ten­sion of leases.

²It may le­gis­late to de­clare frame­work leases to be gen­er­ally ap­plic­able. Such leases may be de­clared gen­er­ally ap­plic­able only if they take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count of the jus­ti­fied in­terests of minor­it­ies and re­gion­al par­tic­u­lar­it­ies, and re­spect the prin­ciple of equal­ity be­fore the law.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may le­gis­late on:

a.

em­ploy­ee pro­tec­tion;

b.

re­la­tions between em­ploy­er and em­ploy­ee, and in par­tic­u­lar on com­mon reg­u­la­tions on op­er­a­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al mat­ters;

c.

re­cruit­ment ser­vices;

d.

the de­clar­a­tion of col­lect­ive em­ploy­ment agree­ments to be gen­er­ally ap­plic­able.

²Col­lect­ive em­ploy­ment agree­ments may be de­clared gen­er­ally ap­plic­able only if they take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count of the jus­ti­fied in­terests of minor­it­ies and re­gion­al par­tic­u­lar­it­ies, and they re­spect the prin­ciple of equal­ity be­fore the law and the right to form pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­ations.

³Au­gust 1 is the Na­tion­al Day of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion. In terms of em­ploy­ment law, it is re­garded as equi­val­ent to a Sunday, with equi­val­ent rights to pay.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take meas­ures to en­sure ad­equate fin­an­cial pro­vi­sion for the eld­erly, sur­viv­ing spouses and chil­dren, and per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies. These shall be based on three pil­lars, namely the Fed­er­al Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance, the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme and private pen­sion schemes.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that the Fed­er­al Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance and the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme are able to ful­fil their pur­pose at all times.

³It may re­quire the Can­tons to ex­empt in­sti­tu­tions of the Fed­er­al Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance and the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme from li­ab­il­ity to pay tax and to grant in­sured per­sons and their em­ploy­ers tax re­lief on con­tri­bu­tions and re­ver­sion­ary rights.

⁴In co­oper­a­tion with the Can­tons, it shall en­cour­age private pen­sion schemes, in par­tic­u­lar through meas­ures re­lat­ing to tax­a­tion policy and the policy of pro­mot­ing prop­erty own­er­ship.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance.

²In do­ing so, it shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

the in­sur­ance is com­puls­ory;

a^bis.¹

it provides cash and non-cash be­ne­fits;

b.

pen­sions must be suf­fi­cient to cov­er ba­sic liv­ing ex­penses ad­equately;

c.

the max­im­um pen­sion must not be more than twice the min­im­um pen­sion;

d.

pen­sions must as a min­im­um be ad­jus­ted in line with price trends.

³The in­sur­ance is fun­ded:

a.

through con­tri­bu­tions from those in­sured, whereby em­ploy­ers must pay one half of the con­tri­bu­tions pay­able by their em­ploy­ees;

b.²

through sub­sidies from the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

⁴The sub­sidies from the Con­fed­er­a­tion may not ex­ceed one half of the dis­burse­ments made un­der the scheme.³.

⁵The sub­sidies from the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall in the first place be fun­ded from the net pro­ceeds of the tax on to­bacco, the tax on dis­tilled spir­its and the tax on the rev­en­ues from gam­ing houses.

⁶…⁴

¹Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall pay sup­ple­ment­ary be­ne­fits to people whose ba­sic liv­ing ex­penses are not covered by be­ne­fits un­der the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance.

²The law de­term­ines the ex­tent of the sup­ple­ment­ary be­ne­fits as well as the tasks and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­cour­age the re­hab­il­it­a­tion of people eli­gible for in­valid­ity be­ne­fits by provid­ing cash and non-cash be­ne­fits. For this pur­pose, it may use re­sources from the In­valid­ity In­sur­ance.

²The Can­tons shall en­cour­age the re­hab­il­it­a­tion of people eli­gible for in­valid­ity be­ne­fits, in par­tic­u­lar through con­tri­bu­tions to the con­struc­tion and run­ning of in­sti­tu­tions that provide ac­com­mod­a­tion and work.

³The law de­term­ines the goals of re­hab­il­it­a­tion and the prin­ciples and cri­ter­ia.

¹The Can­tons shall provide for as­sist­ance and care in the home for eld­erly people and people with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port na­tion­al ef­forts for the be­ne­fit of eld­erly people and people with dis­ab­il­it­ies. For this pur­pose, it may use re­sources from the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late for an oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme.

²In do­ing so, it shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme, to­geth­er with the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance, en­ables the in­sured per­son to main­tain his or her pre­vi­ous life­style in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

b.

the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme is com­puls­ory for em­ploy­ees; the law may provide for ex­cep­tions.

c.

em­ploy­ers shall in­sure their em­ploy­ees with a pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion; if re­quired, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall make it pos­sible for em­ploy­ees to be in­sured with a fed­er­al pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion.

d.

self-em­ployed per­sons may in­sure them­selves on a vol­un­tary basis with a pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion.

e.

for spe­cif­ic groups of self-em­ployed per­sons, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may de­clare the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme to be com­puls­ory, either in gen­er­al terms or for in­di­vidu­al risks only.

³The oc­cu­pa­tion pen­sion scheme is fun­ded from the con­tri­bu­tions of those in­sured, whereby em­ploy­ers must pay a min­im­um of one half of the con­tri­bu­tions of their em­ploy­ees.

⁴Pen­sion schemes must sat­is­fy the min­im­um re­quire­ments un­der fed­er­al law; the Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide for na­tion­al meas­ures to re­solve par­tic­u­lar dif­fi­culties.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance.

²In do­ing so, it shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

the in­sur­ance guar­an­tees ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion for loss of earn­ings and sup­ports meas­ures to pre­vent and com­bat un­em­ploy­ment;

b.

the in­sur­ance is com­puls­ory for em­ploy­ees; the law may provide for ex­cep­tions;

c.

self-em­ployed per­sons may in­sure them­selves vol­un­tar­ily.

³The in­sur­ance is fun­ded by the con­tri­bu­tions from those in­sured, whereby one half of the con­tri­bu­tions of em­ploy­ees shall be paid by their em­ploy­ers.

⁴Con­fed­er­a­tion and Can­tons shall provide sub­sidies in ex­traordin­ary cir­cum­stances.

⁵The Con­fed­er­a­tion may en­act reg­u­la­tions on so­cial as­sist­ance for the un­em­ployed.

Per­sons in need shall be sup­por­ted by their Can­ton of res­id­ence. The Con­fed­er­a­tion reg­u­lates ex­cep­tions and powers.

¹In the ful­fil­ment of its du­ties, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take ac­count of the needs of fam­il­ies. It may sup­port meas­ures for the pro­tec­tion of fam­il­ies.

²It may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on child al­low­ances and op­er­ate a fed­er­al fam­ily al­low­ances com­pens­a­tion fund.

³It shall es­tab­lish a ma­ter­nity in­sur­ance scheme. It may also re­quire per­sons who can­not be­ne­fit from that in­sur­ance to make con­tri­bu­tions.

⁴The Con­fed­er­a­tion may de­clare par­ti­cip­a­tion in a fam­ily al­low­ances com­pens­a­tion fund and the ma­ter­nity in­sur­ance scheme to be com­puls­ory, either in gen­er­al terms or for in­di­vidu­al sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion, and make its sub­sidies de­pend­ent on ap­pro­pri­ate sub­sidies be­ing made by the Can­tons.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on health and ac­ci­dent in­sur­ance.

²It may de­clare health and the ac­ci­dent in­sur­ance to be com­puls­ory, either in gen­er­al terms or for in­di­vidu­al sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall with­in the scope of their powers en­sure the ad­equate pro­vi­sion of high qual­ity primary med­ic­al care that is ac­cess­ible to all. They shall re­cog­nise and pro­mote fam­ily medi­cine as an es­sen­tial com­pon­ent of primary care.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on:

a.

ba­sic and con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing for fam­ily medi­cine pro­fes­sions and the re­quire­ments for prac­tising these pro­fes­sions;

b.

ap­pro­pri­ate re­mu­ner­a­tion for fam­ily medi­cine ser­vices.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall, with­in the lim­its of its powers, take meas­ures for the pro­tec­tion of health.

²It shall le­gis­late on:

a.

the use of food­stuffs as well as thera­peut­ic products, nar­cot­ics, or­gan­isms, chem­ic­als and items that may be dan­ger­ous to health;

b.

the com­bat­ing of com­mu­nic­able, wide­spread or par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous hu­man and an­im­al dis­eases;

c.

pro­tec­tion against ion­ising ra­di­ation.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall with­in the scope of their powers en­sure that con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to com­ple­ment­ary medi­cine.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on re­search on hu­man be­ings where this is re­quired in or­der to pro­tect their dig­nity and pri­vacy. In do­ing so, it shall pre­serve the free­dom to con­duct re­search and shall take ac­count of the im­port­ance of re­search to health and so­ci­ety.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples in re­la­tion to bio­lo­gic­al and med­ic­al re­search in­volving hu­man be­ings:

a.

It is a re­quire­ment for any re­search pro­ject that the par­ti­cipants or their leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ives have giv­en their in­formed con­sent. The law may provide for ex­cep­tions. A re­fus­al is bind­ing in every case.

b.

The risks and stress for the par­ti­cipants must not be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the be­ne­fits of the re­search pro­ject.

c.

A re­search pro­ject in­volving per­sons lack­ing the ca­pa­city to con­sent may be con­duc­ted only if find­ings of equal value can­not be ob­tained from re­search in­volving per­sons who have the ca­pa­city to con­sent. If the re­search pro­ject is not ex­pec­ted to bring any im­me­di­ate be­ne­fit to the per­sons lack­ing the ca­pa­city to con­sent, the risks and stress must be min­im­al.

d.

An in­de­pend­ent as­sess­ment of the re­search pro­ject must have de­term­ined that the safety of the par­ti­cipants is guar­an­teed.

¹Hu­man be­ings shall be pro­tec­ted against the mis­use of re­pro­duct­ive medi­cine and gene tech­no­logy.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the use of hu­man re­pro­duct­ive and ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al. In do­ing so, it shall en­sure the pro­tec­tion of hu­man dig­nity, pri­vacy and the fam­ily and shall ad­here in par­tic­u­lar to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

All forms of clon­ing and in­ter­fer­ence with the ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al of hu­man re­pro­duct­ive cells and em­bry­os are un­law­ful.

b.

Non-hu­man re­pro­duct­ive and ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al may neither be in­tro­duced in­to nor com­bined with hu­man re­pro­duct­ive ma­ter­i­al.

c.¹

The pro­ced­ures for med­ic­ally-as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion may be used only if in­fer­til­ity or the risk of trans­mit­ting a ser­i­ous ill­ness can­not oth­er­wise be over­come, but not in or­der to con­ceive a child with spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics or to fur­ther re­search; the fer­til­isa­tion of hu­man egg cells out­side a wo­man's body is per­mit­ted only un­der the con­di­tions laid down by the law; no more hu­man egg cells may be de­veloped in­to em­bry­os out­side a wo­man's body than are re­quired for med­ic­ally-as­sisted re­pro­duc­tion.

d.

The dona­tion of em­bry­os and all forms of sur­rog­ate moth­er­hood are un­law­ful.

e.

The trade in hu­man re­pro­duct­ive ma­ter­i­al and in products ob­tained from em­bry­os is pro­hib­ited.

f.

The ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al of a per­son may be ana­lysed, re­gistered or made pub­lic only with the con­sent of the per­son con­cerned or if the law so provides.

g.

Every per­son shall have ac­cess to data re­lat­ing to their an­ces­try.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late in the field of or­gan, tis­sue and cell trans­plants. In do­ing so, it shall en­sure the pro­tec­tion of hu­man dig­nity, pri­vacy and health.

²It shall in par­tic­u­lar lay down cri­ter­ia for the fair al­loc­a­tion of or­gans.

³Any dona­tion of hu­man or­gans, tis­sue and cells must be free of charge. The trade in hu­man or­gans is pro­hib­ited.

¹Hu­man be­ings and their en­vir­on­ment shall be pro­tec­ted against the mis­use of gene tech­no­logy.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on the use of re­pro­duct­ive and ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al from an­im­als, plants and oth­er or­gan­isms. In do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the dig­nity of liv­ing be­ings as well as the safety of hu­man be­ings, an­im­als and the en­vir­on­ment, and shall pro­tect the ge­net­ic di­versity of an­im­al and plant spe­cies.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion on entry to and exit from Switzer­land, the res­id­ence and the per­man­ent set­tle­ment of for­eign na­tion­als and on the grant­ing of asylum.

²For­eign na­tion­als may be ex­pelled from Switzer­land if they pose a risk to the se­cur­ity of the coun­try.

³Ir­re­spect­ive of their status un­der the law on for­eign na­tion­als, for­eign na­tion­als shall lose their right of res­id­ence and all oth­er leg­al rights to re­main in Switzer­land if they:

a.

are con­victed with leg­al bind­ing ef­fect of an of­fence of in­ten­tion­al hom­icide, rape or any oth­er ser­i­ous sexu­al of­fence, any oth­er vi­ol­ent of­fence such as rob­bery, the of­fences of traf­fick­ing in hu­man be­ings or in drugs, or a burg­lary of­fence; or

b.

have im­prop­erly claimed so­cial in­sur­ance or so­cial as­sist­ance be­ne­fits.³

⁴The le­gis­lature shall define the of­fences covered by para­graph 3 in more de­tail. It may add ad­di­tion­al of­fences.⁴

⁵For­eign na­tion­als who lose their right of res­id­ence and all oth­er leg­al rights to re­main in Switzer­land in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 3 and 4 must be de­por­ted from Switzer­land by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity and must be made sub­ject to a ban on entry of from 5-15 years. In the event of re­offend­ing, the ban on entry is for 20 years.⁵

⁶Any per­son who fails to com­ply with the ban on entry or oth­er­wise enters Switzer­land il­leg­ally com­mits an of­fence. The le­gis­lature shall is­sue the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions.⁶

¹Switzer­land shall con­trol the im­mig­ra­tion of for­eign na­tion­als autonom­ously.

²The num­ber of res­id­ence per­mits for for­eign na­tion­als in Switzer­land shall be re­stric­ted by an­nu­al quant­it­at­ive lim­its and quotas. The quant­it­at­ive lim­its ap­ply to all per­mits is­sued un­der le­gis­la­tion on for­eign na­tion­als, in­clud­ing those re­lated to asylum mat­ters. The right to per­man­ent res­id­ence, fam­ily re­uni­fic­a­tion and so­cial be­ne­fits may be re­stric­ted.

³The an­nu­al quant­it­at­ive lim­its and quotas for for­eign na­tion­als in gain­ful em­ploy­ment must be de­term­ined ac­cord­ing to Switzer­land's gen­er­al eco­nom­ic in­terests, while giv­ing pri­or­ity to Swiss cit­izens; the lim­its and quotas must in­clude cross-bor­der com­muters. The de­cis­ive cri­ter­ia for grant­ing res­id­ence per­mits are primar­ily a ap­plic­a­tion from an em­ploy­er, abil­ity to in­teg­rate, and ad­equate, in­de­pend­ent means of sub­sist­ence.

⁴No in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments may be con­cluded that breach this Art­icle.

⁵The law shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion in the field of civil law and the law of civil pro­ced­ure.

²The Can­tons are re­spons­ible for the or­gan­isa­tion of the courts and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of justice in civil mat­ters, un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion in the field of crim­in­al law and the law of crim­in­al pro­ced­ure.

²The Can­tons are re­spons­ible for the or­gan­isa­tion of the courts, the ad­min­is­tra­tion of justice in crim­in­al cases as well as for the ex­e­cu­tion of pen­al­ties and meas­ures, un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the ex­e­cu­tion of pen­al­ties and meas­ures. It may grant sub­sidies to the Can­tons for:

a.

the con­struc­tion of pen­al in­sti­tu­tions;

b.

im­prove­ments in the ex­e­cu­tion of pen­al­ties and meas­ures;

c.

in­sti­tu­tions that con­duct edu­cat­ive meas­ures for the be­ne­fit of chil­dren, ad­oles­cents and young adults.²

¹If a sex of­fend­er or vi­ol­ent of­fend­er is re­garded in the re­ports re­quired for sen­ten­cing as be­ing ex­tremely dan­ger­ous and his or her con­di­tion as­sessed as un­treat­able, he or she must be in­car­cer­ated un­til the end of his or her life due to the high risk of re­offend­ing. Early re­lease and re­lease on tem­por­ary li­cence are not per­mit­ted.

²Only if new sci­entif­ic find­ings prove that the of­fend­er can be cured and thus no longer rep­res­ents a danger to the pub­lic can new re­ports be drawn up. If the of­fend­er is re­leased on the basis of these new re­ports, the au­thor­it­ies grant­ing his or her re­lease must ac­cept li­ab­il­ity if he re­offends.

³All re­ports as­sess­ing sex of­fend­ers or vi­ol­ent of­fend­ers must be drawn up by at least two ex­per­i­enced spe­cial­ists who are in­de­pend­ent of each oth­er. The re­ports must take ac­count of all the prin­ciples that are im­port­ant for the as­sess­ment.

The right to pro­sec­ute sexu­al or por­no­graphy of­fences in­volving pre­pu­bes­cent chil­dren and the pen­al­ties for such of­fences is not sub­ject to a time lim­it.

Per­sons con­victed of harm­ing the sexu­al in­teg­rity of a child or of a de­pend­ent per­son shall per­man­ently lose the right to carry on a pro­fes­sion or vol­un­tary activ­ity in­volving minors or de­pend­ent per­sons.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons shall en­sure that per­sons who have suffered harm to their phys­ic­al, men­tal or sexu­al in­teg­rity as the res­ult of a crim­in­al act re­ceive sup­port and are ad­equately com­pensated if they ex­per­i­ence fin­an­cial dif­fi­culties as a res­ult of that crim­in­al act.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion on weights and meas­ures.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall main­tain its in­come and ex­pendit­ure in bal­ance over time.

²The ceil­ing for total ex­pendit­ure that is to be ap­proved in the budget is based on the ex­pec­ted in­come after tak­ing ac­count of the eco­nom­ic situ­ation.

³Ex­cep­tion­al fin­an­cial re­quire­ments may jus­ti­fy an ap­pro­pri­ate in­crease in the ceil­ing in terms of para­graph 2. The Fed­er­al As­sembly shall de­cide on any in­crease in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 159 para­graph 3 let­ter c.

⁴If the total ex­pendit­ure in the fed­er­al ac­counts ex­ceeds the ceil­ing in terms of para­graphs 2 or 3, com­pens­a­tion for this ad­di­tion­al ex­pendit­ure must be made in sub­sequent years.

⁵The de­tails are reg­u­lated by law.

¹The main struc­tur­al fea­tures of any tax, in par­tic­u­lar those li­able to pay tax, the ob­ject of the tax and its as­sess­ment, are reg­u­lated by law.

²Provided the nature of the tax per­mits it, the prin­ciples of uni­ver­sal­ity and uni­form­ity of tax­a­tion as well as the prin­ciple of tax­a­tion ac­cord­ing to abil­ity to pay are ap­plied.

³In­ter­can­t­on­al double tax­a­tion is pro­hib­ited. The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take the meas­ures re­quired.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may levy a dir­ect tax:

a.

of a max­im­um of 11.5 per cent on the in­come of private in­di­vidu­als;

b.²

of a max­im­um of 8.5 per cent of the net profit of leg­al en­tit­ies;

c.³

…

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion, in fix­ing the tax­a­tion rates, shall take ac­count of the bur­den of dir­ect tax­a­tion im­posed by the Can­tons and com­munes.

³In re­la­tion to the tax on the in­come of private in­di­vidu­als, reg­u­lar re­vi­sions shall be made to com­pensate for the con­sequences of an in­creased tax bur­den due to in­fla­tion.

⁴The tax is as­sessed and col­lec­ted by the Can­tons. A min­im­um of 17 per cent of the gross rev­en­ue from tax­a­tion is al­loc­ated to the Can­tons. This share may be re­duced to 15 per cent if the con­sequences of fin­an­cial equal­isa­tion so re­quire.⁴

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall set out prin­ciples on the har­mon­isa­tion of the dir­ect taxes im­posed by the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Can­tons and the com­munes; it shall take ac­count of the ef­forts to­wards har­mon­isa­tion made by the Can­tons.

²Har­mon­isa­tion shall ex­tend to tax li­ab­il­ity, the ob­ject of the tax and the tax peri­od, pro­ced­ur­al law and the law re­lat­ing to tax of­fences. Mat­ters ex­cluded from har­mon­isa­tion shall in­clude in par­tic­u­lar tax scales, tax rates and tax al­low­ances.

³The Con­fed­er­a­tion may is­sue reg­u­la­tions to pre­vent un­jus­ti­fied tax be­ne­fits.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion may levy value ad­ded tax on the sup­ply of goods, on ser­vices, in­clud­ing goods and ser­vices for per­son­al use, and on im­ports, at a stand­ard rate of a max­im­um of 6.5 per cent and at a re­duced rate of at least 2.0 per cent.

²The law may provide for the tax­a­tion of ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vices at a rate between the re­duced rate and the stand­ard rate.²

³If, due to demo­graph­ic changes, the fin­an­cing of the Old-Age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance is no longer guar­an­teed, the stand­ard rate may be in­creased by fed­er­al act by a max­im­um of 1 per­cent­age point and the re­duced rate by a max­im­um of 0.3 of a per­cent­age point.³

^3bisIn or­der to fin­ance rail­way in­fra­struc­ture, the rates shall be in­creased by 0.1 of a per­cent­age point.⁴

⁴5 per cent of the non-ear­marked rev­en­ues shall be used to re­duce the health in­sur­ance premi­ums of per­sons on low in­comes, un­less an al­tern­at­ive meth­od of as­sist­ing such per­sons is provided for by law.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may level spe­cial con­sump­tion taxes on:

a.

to­bacco and to­bacco products;

b.

dis­tilled spir­its;

c.

beer;

d.

auto­mo­biles and their parts;

e.

pet­ro­leum, oth­er min­er­al oils, nat­ur­al gas and products ob­tained by re­fin­ing these re­sources, as well as on mo­tor fuels.

²It may also levy:

a.

a sur­charge on the con­sump­tion tax on mo­tor fuels with the ex­cep­tion of avi­ation fuels;

b.

a charge that ap­plies when mo­tor vehicles are powered by means oth­er than mo­tor fuels in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter e.²

^2bisIf the mon­ies are in­suf­fi­cient to carry out the tasks provided for un­der Art­icle 87b in con­nec­tion with air traffic, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall levy a sur­charge on the con­sump­tion tax on avi­ation fuels.³

³The Can­tons shall re­ceive ten per cent of the net pro­ceeds from the tax­a­tion of dis­tilled spir­its. These funds must be used to fight the causes and ef­fects of sub­stance ad­dic­tion.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion may levy a stamp duty on se­cur­it­ies, on re­ceipts for in­sur­ance premi­ums and on oth­er com­mer­cial deeds; deeds re­lat­ing to prop­erty and mort­gage trans­ac­tions are ex­empt from stamp duty.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion may levy a with­hold­ing tax on in­come from move­able cap­it­al as­sets, on lot­tery win­nings and on in­sur­ance be­ne­fits. 10 per cent of the tax rev­en­ue shall be al­loc­ated to the Can­tons.¹

The Con­fed­er­a­tion is re­spons­ible for le­gis­la­tion on cus­toms du­ties and oth­er du­ties on the cross-bor­der move­ment of goods.

Any­thing that is de­clared by fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion to be sub­ject to, or ex­empt from value ad­ded tax, spe­cial con­sump­tion taxes, stamp duty or with­hold­ing tax may not be made li­able to sim­il­ar taxes by the Can­tons or com­munes.

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the equit­able equal­isa­tion of fin­an­cial re­sources and bur­dens between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons as well as among the Can­tons.

²The equal­isa­tion of fin­an­cial re­sources and bur­dens is in­ten­ded in par­tic­u­lar to:

a.

re­duce the dif­fer­ences in fin­an­cial ca­pa­city among the Can­tons;

b.

guar­an­tee the Can­tons a min­im­um level of fin­an­cial re­sources;

c.

com­pensate for ex­cess­ive fin­an­cial bur­dens on in­di­vidu­al Can­tons due to geo-to­po­graph­ic­al or so­cio-demo­graph­ic factors;

d.

en­cour­age in­ter­can­t­on­al co­oper­a­tion on bur­den equal­isa­tion;

e.

main­tain the tax com­pet­it­ive­ness of the Can­tons by na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­par­is­on.

³The funds for the equal­isa­tion of fin­an­cial re­sources shall be provided by those Can­tons with a high­er level of re­sources and by the Con­fed­er­a­tion. The pay­ments made by those Can­tons with a high­er level of re­sources shall amount to a min­im­um of two thirds and a max­im­um of 80 per cent of the pay­ments made by the Con­fed­er­a­tion.