Government and
Administration Organisation Ordinance
(GAOO)

(Art. 13, 16 paras. 1 and 4, 17 GAOA)

¹ As a gen­er­al rule, Fed­er­al Coun­cil ses­sions shall be held once a week.

² Busi­ness of ma­jor im­port­ance or polit­ic­al sig­ni­fic­ance shall be dis­cussed and de­cided in­di­vidu­ally. Busi­ness of far-reach­ing sig­ni­fic­ance may be dealt with in the con­text of closed-door meet­ings.

³ The re­main­ing busi­ness may, if un­con­tested, be passed as a whole without in­di­vidu­al dis­cus­sion or may be dealt with by writ­ten res­ol­u­tion. Pres­id­en­tial de­cisions pur­su­ant to Art­icle 26 para­graph 4 GAOA re­main re­served.⁴

⁴ If cir­cum­stances re­quire it and there is no time to hold a meet­ing, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may also dis­cuss in­di­vidu­al items of busi­ness as men­tioned in para­graph 2 in writ­ing or by oth­er means. These res­ol­u­tions are equi­val­ent to those taken at meet­ings. Pres­id­en­tial de­cisions pur­su­ant to Art­icle 26 para­graphs 1-3 GAOA re­main re­served.⁵

⁵ The res­ol­u­tions shall be re­cor­ded in writ­ing for each item of busi­ness.

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a, 32 let. b and 33 GAOA)

¹ Busi­ness plan­ning shall en­sure that busi­ness can be dealt with in the Fed­er­al Coun­cil in ac­cord­ance with its im­port­ance and ur­gency.

² The Pres­id­ent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, in con­sulta­tion with the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery and the de­part­ments, shall de­term­ine the most im­port­ant items of busi­ness and them­at­ic pri­or­it­ies for a quarter or semester.

(Art. 14, 15, 17 GAOA)

¹ As a gen­er­al rule, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take its de­cisions on the basis of writ­ten pro­pos­als and after the joint re­port­ing pro­ced­ure has been com­pleted (Art. 5).

² The mem­bers of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and, for the busi­ness of the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, the Fed­er­al Chan­cel­lor have the right to sub­mit pro­pos­als.

³ Where fed­er­al law des­ig­nates oth­er au­thor­it­ies or bod­ies that may sub­mit busi­ness or pro­pos­als to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, this shall be done via the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery or the de­part­ment that has the closest tech­nic­al con­nec­tion with the busi­ness in ques­tion.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall hold spe­cial dis­cus­sions in par­tic­u­lar on mat­ters of far-reach­ing im­port­ance. If ne­ces­sary, it shall take in­ter­im de­cisions, de­term­ine the main fea­tures of a solu­tion and is­sue in­struc­tions to the com­pet­ent de­part­ment or the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery on how to deal with the mat­ter.

⁵ The de­part­ments or the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery may at any time, without form­al re­quest, send the Fed­er­al Coun­cil brief­ing notes on im­port­ant pro­cesses and activ­it­ies in their area of re­spons­ib­il­ity.

¹ When pre­par­ing pro­pos­als, the lead of­fice shall in­vite jointly in­ter­ested ad­min­is­trat­ive units to com­ment, set­ting ap­pro­pri­ate dead­lines. In jus­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cases, the of­fice con­sulta­tion pro­ced­ure may be waived or may be lim­ited to a nar­row group of ad­dress­ees.

^1bis In the case of con­fid­en­tial and secret Fed­er­al Coun­cil busi­ness, the ad­min­is­trat­ive units re­spons­ible for ad­vance leg­al ex­am­in­a­tion shall be con­sul­ted on im­port­ant and con­ten­tious leg­al is­sues be­fore the Fed­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing if pos­sible.⁷

² Dif­fer­ences shall be re­solved as far as pos­sible through the of­fice con­sulta­tion pro­ced­ure; the lead de­part­ment shall re­port on this to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

³ The ad­min­is­trat­ive units that have a tech­nic­al con­nec­tion to the busi­ness or that are re­spons­ible for the as­sess­ment of fin­an­cial, leg­al or form­al as­pects are con­sidered to be co-in­ter­ested.

(Art. 15 and 33 GAOA)

¹ The joint-re­port­ing pro­ced­ure serves to pre­pare for the de­cision-mak­ing pro­cess at Fed­er­al Coun­cil level. The aim of the pro­ced­ure is to en­able the Fed­er­al Coun­cil to con­cen­trate on fun­da­ment­al as­pects in its de­lib­er­a­tions.

^1bis The joint re­port­ing pro­ced­ure be­gins with the sign­ing of the pro­pos­al by the lead de­part­ment.⁸

² The lead de­part­ment shall sub­mit the signed pro­pos­al to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery in good time for con­duct­ing the joint-re­port­ing pro­ced­ure.⁹

¹ The com­pet­ent de­part­ment shall de­cide on re­quests from Coun­cil mem­bers and from par­lia­ment­ary com­mit­tees for in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 7 or 150 of the Par­lia­ment Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002¹¹ (ParlA). If there is dis­agree­ment between the ap­plic­ant and the com­pet­ent de­part­ment on the scope of the rights to in­form­a­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide in each case:

a.

in the case of in­form­a­tion that dir­ectly serves its de­cision-mak­ing, at the re­quest of the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery;

b.

in the case of in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to state se­cur­ity and the in­tel­li­gence ser­vices at the re­quest of the com­pet­ent de­part­ment.

³ Re­quests to in­spect Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cisions are pro­cessed and answered by the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery in con­sulta­tion with the com­pet­ent de­part­ment.

¹ The com­mit­tees re­spons­ible for for­eign policy shall be con­sul­ted on im­port­ant plans with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 152 para­graphs 3 and 4 ParlA¹³ in par­tic­u­lar when:

a.

as a res­ult of the im­ple­ment­a­tion of re­com­mend­a­tions or de­cisions of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or mul­ti­lat­er­al bod­ies, the en­act­ment or a sub­stan­tial amend­ment of a fed­er­al act is re­quired; or

b.

fail­ure to im­ple­ment such re­com­mend­a­tions or de­cisions would en­tail the risk of ser­i­ous eco­nom­ic dis­ad­vant­ages, sanc­tions, isol­a­tion of Switzer­land due to the dis­sent­ing Swiss po­s­i­tion or polit­ic­al repu­ta­tion­al dam­age, or if oth­er ser­i­ous dis­ad­vant­ages for Switzer­land are to be ex­pec­ted.

² Con­sulta­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 shall take place on the basis of a draft man­date from the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. In the case of ur­gent con­sulta­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 152 para­graph 4 ParlA, con­sulta­tion may take place on pro­vi­sion­al po­s­i­tions that Switzer­land in­tends to ad­opt in ne­go­ti­ations.

¹ The de­part­ments shall re­port to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery on an on­go­ing basis the title and the sub­ject mat­ter of the reg­u­la­tions from their area of re­spons­ib­il­ity and from the area of re­spons­ib­il­ity of their groups and of­fices of:

a.

fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion that is not pub­lished in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 of the Pub­lic­a­tion Act of 18 June 2004¹⁵, as well as its amend­ment or re­peal;

b.

con­fid­en­tial or secret in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies or de­cisions un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, as well as their amend­ment or re­peal.

² The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall main­tain a con­tinu­ously up­dated list of:

a.

the texts re­ferred to in para­graph 1;

b.

le­gis­la­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 of the Pub­lic­a­tions Act and con­fid­en­tial or secret in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies or de­cisions un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law with­in the Fed­er­al Coun­cil’s area of re­spons­ib­il­ity.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall send the list in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 to the Con­trol Del­eg­a­tion once a year.

(Art. 8 para. 1 GAOA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion is di­vided in­to the cent­ral and the de­cent­ral­ised ad­min­is­tra­tion.

² Pub­lic or private en­tit­ies that have been cre­ated by stat­ute and pre­dom­in­antly provide ser­vices of a mono­pol­ist­ic nature or per­form eco­nom­ic or se­cur­ity su­per­vis­ory tasks fall with­in the scope of the de­cent­ral­ised fed­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tion.

³ Ex­tern­al pro­viders of ad­min­is­trat­ive tasks with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 2 para­graph 4 GAOA that pre­dom­in­antly provide ser­vices on the mar­ket are not part of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion's. This also ap­plies to private law en­tit­ies which the Con­fed­er­a­tion sup­ports with fin­an­cial as­sist­ance or con­tri­bu­tions un­der Art­icle 3 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990¹⁷ or in which it holds a minor­ity in­terest.

(Art. 2 par. 1 and 2 as well as Art. 43 and 44 GAOA)

¹ The Cent­ral Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion com­prises:

a.

the de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery;

b.

the gen­er­al sec­ret­ari­ats of the de­part­ments and their oth­er sub­di­vi­sions;

c.

the groups;

d.¹⁸

the fed­er­al of­fices and their sub­di­vi­sions.

² Ad­min­is­trat­ive units in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ters c and d may also have oth­er names.

³ The ad­min­is­trat­ive units lis­ted in para­graph 1 let­ters b-d shall be sub­or­din­ate to a de­part­ment. They are bound by the de­part­ment’s dir­ect­ives.

⁴ Fed­er­al of­fices may be com­bined in­to groups if this im­proves the man­age­ab­il­ity of the de­part­ment.

(Art. 2 para. 3 GAOA)

¹ The De­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion com­prises the fol­low­ing four cat­egor­ies of ad­min­is­trat­ive units:

a.

the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions pur­su­ant to Art­icle 57a GAOA;

b.

the ad­min­is­trat­ive units that are or­gan­isa­tion­ally in­de­pend­ent by law that do not have leg­al per­son­al­ity;

c.

the leg­ally in­de­pend­ent pub­lic cor­por­a­tions and found­a­tions as well as in­sti­tu­tions es­tab­lished by stat­ute, un­less they pre­dom­in­antly provide ser­vices on the mar­ket;

d.

com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares which the Con­fed­er­a­tion con­trols in terms of cap­it­al and vot­ing rights, un­less they pre­dom­in­antly provide ser­vices on the mar­ket.

² The ad­min­is­trat­ive units in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ters a and b are not bound by dir­ect­ives in the per­form­ance of their du­ties un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

The ad­min­is­trat­ive units of the De­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion are by law:

a.

af­fil­i­ated to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery or one of the de­part­ments; and

b.

as­signed to a cat­egory in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7a para­graph 1.

¹ An­nex 1 con­tains an ex­haust­ive list in­clud­ing the af­fil­i­ated de­part­ment of:

a.

the ad­min­is­trat­ive units of the Cent­ral Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion, but not in­clud­ing the fur­ther sub­di­vi­sions of the fed­er­al of­fices;

b.

the ad­min­is­trat­ive units of the De­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion, with the ex­cep­tion of the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions.

² An­nex 2 con­tains an ex­haust­ive list of the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions and their af­fil­i­ated de­part­ments.

¹ Ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions are either ad­min­is­trat­ive or ex­ec­ut­ive com­mis­sions, de­pend­ing on their func­tion.

² Ad­min­is­trat­ive com­mis­sions have ad­vis­ory and pre­par­at­ory func­tions.

³ Ex­ec­ut­ive com­mis­sions have de­cision-mak­ing powers.

¹ Any per­son who ful­fils the re­quire­ments for em­ploy­ment in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion may be elec­ted as a mem­ber of an ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sion.

² There is no age re­stric­tion for elec­tion.²⁰

¹ At least of the mem­bers of an ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sion must be wo­men, and at least 40 per cent must be men. In the longer term, equal rep­res­ent­a­tion of both genders should be aimed for.

² If the pro­por­tion of wo­men or men is less than 40 per cent, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall re­quest the de­part­ment con­cerned to provide writ­ten jus­ti­fic­a­tion.

¹ As far as pos­sible, Ger­man, French and Itali­an speak­ers must be rep­res­en­ted in the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions. At least one Ro­man­sh-speak­ing per­son should be sought.

² If Ger­man, French and Itali­an are not rep­res­en­ted by at least one per­son, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall re­quest the de­part­ment con­cerned to provide writ­ten jus­ti­fic­a­tion.

¹ Ex­ceed­ing the stat­utory max­im­um num­ber of mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions is only per­mit­ted in ex­cep­tion­al cases and must be jus­ti­fied.

² An ex­cess num­ber of mem­bers is jus­ti­fied in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

two or more com­mis­sions are merged;

b.

a bal­anced com­pos­i­tion is only pos­sible with a high­er num­ber of mem­bers;

c.

be­cause of the im­port­ance of the po­lice field for which the com­mis­sion is re­spons­ible, a broad­er in­clu­sion of dif­fer­ent points of view is re­quired.

¹ Ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions shall be es­tab­lished by or­der of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

² The es­tab­lish­ment or­der shall have the fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar as con­tent:

a.

It jus­ti­fies the need for the com­mis­sion and de­scribes its tasks in de­tail.

b.²³

…

c.²⁴

It states the num­ber of mem­bers and, if ap­plic­able, the reas­ons for ex­ceed­ing the leg­al max­im­um num­ber of mem­bers.

d.²⁵

…

e.

It reg­u­lates how the com­mis­sion is or­gan­ised.

f.

It reg­u­lates re­port­ing pro­ced­ures and the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic.

g.

It reg­u­lates the duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

g^bis.²⁶

It spe­cifies the re­mu­ner­a­tion cat­egory to which the com­mis­sion be­longs in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 8n and 8p and An­nex 2.

h.

It de­term­ines the rights to use any copy­right-pro­tec­ted works and pro­cesses that may be pro­duced.

i.

If ne­ces­sary, it reg­u­lates the re­la­tions of the com­mis­sion with can­tons, parties and oth­er or­gan­isa­tions.

j.²⁷

It as­signs the com­mis­sion to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity (a de­part­ment or the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery) and des­ig­nates the ad­min­is­trat­ive of­fice that provides the sec­ret­ari­at for the com­mis­sion.

k.²⁸

It names the body re­spons­ible for fin­an­cing the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sion.

l.²⁹

It reg­u­lates the Com­mis­sion's right to in­form­a­tion in deal­ings with the Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

m.³⁰ For ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions en­trus­ted with su­per­vis­ory or reg­u­lat­ory tasks, it con­tains the pro­file of re­quire­ments for their mem­bers.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall elect the mem­bers. It shall de­term­ine their func­tion in­so­far as this is not in­dic­ated by pro­vi­sions in spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion on the or­gan­isa­tion of the com­mis­sion con­cerned.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set a wait­ing peri­od in its de­cision elect­ing mem­bers of com­mis­sions en­trus­ted with su­per­vis­ory and reg­u­lat­ory tasks if it is to be ex­pec­ted that the im­me­di­ate ap­point­ment of a mem­ber after leav­ing the com­mis­sion to a po­s­i­tion with em­ploy­ers or cli­ents in the area su­per­vised or reg­u­lated will lead to a con­flict of in­terest.

² A con­flict of in­terest ex­ists in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

the cred­ib­il­ity and repu­ta­tion of the com­mis­sion or the Con­fed­er­a­tion may be ad­versely af­fected by the ap­point­ment;

b.

a com­mis­sion mem­ber has in­flu­ence over in­di­vidu­al de­cisions or ac­cess to in­form­a­tion in such a way that he or she would no longer ap­pear to be im­par­tial if he or she worked for an em­ploy­er or cli­ent in the reg­u­lated or su­per­vised sec­tor.

³ The dur­a­tion of the wait­ing peri­od shall be a min­im­um of six and a max­im­um of twelve months.

⁴ Com­pens­a­tion may be stip­u­lated for the wait­ing peri­od. It shall cor­res­pond to in the fin­an­cial loss to be ex­pec­ted in the in­di­vidu­al case but shall not ex­ceed the re­mu­ner­a­tion pre­vi­ously re­ceived, whereby all in­come, ex­penses and pen­sion be­ne­fits re­ceived in this peri­od shall be taken in­to ac­count.

⁵ Any per­son who re­ceives com­pens­a­tion dur­ing a wait­ing peri­od al­low­ance is ob­liged to re­port the in­come, ex­penses and pen­sion be­ne­fits re­ceived dur­ing the wait­ing peri­od to the com­pet­ent de­part­ment.

⁶ Any wait­ing peri­od com­pens­a­tion re­ceived without jus­ti­fic­a­tion must be re­fun­ded.

¹ Each mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion shall provide in­form­a­tion on his:

a.

pro­fes­sion­al activ­it­ies;

b.

activ­it­ies in man­age­ment and su­per­vis­ory bod­ies and on ad­vis­ory boards and sim­il­ar bod­ies of Swiss and for­eign private and pub­lic cor­por­a­tions, in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions;

c.

ad­vis­ory or ex­pert activ­it­ies for fed­er­al bod­ies;

d.

per­man­ent man­age­ment or ad­vis­ory activ­it­ies for Swiss and for­eign in­terest groups;

e.

par­ti­cip­a­tion in oth­er fed­er­al or­gans.

² Pro­fes­sion­al secrecy in terms of the Crim­in­al Code³⁴ re­mains re­served.

³ Mem­bers of com­mis­sions shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the de­part­ment con­cerned of any change in their in­terests dur­ing the term of of­fice. The de­part­ment shall up­date the list in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8k.³⁵

⁴ Mem­bers of com­mis­sions who have not fully dis­closed their in­terests at the time of elec­tion or who have not re­por­ted changes to their in­terests dur­ing the term of of­fice and who fail to do so even after be­ing re­ques­ted to do so by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may be re­moved.³⁶

¹ Com­mis­sion mem­bers may use in­form­a­tion that is not pub­licly known that they ob­tain in the course of their com­mis­sion activ­it­ies only for their com­mis­sion activ­it­ies.

² In par­tic­u­lar, they may not use in­form­a­tion un­der para­graph 1 to gain an ad­vant­age for them­selves or oth­ers.

¹ The term of of­fice of mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions shall be four years. It is based on the le­gis­lature peri­od of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil. It be­gins on 1 Janu­ary und ends on 31 Decem­ber.³⁸

² The man­date of mem­bers elec­ted dur­ing the term of of­fice shall end on its ex­piry.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall hold gen­er­al elec­tions for each new term of of­fice of the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions.

² The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall co­ordin­ate the gen­er­al elec­tions. It shall is­sue the cor­res­pond­ing dir­ect­ives for this pur­pose and shall make them known to the Fed­er­al As­sembly con­trol com­mit­tees.

³ After the gen­er­al elec­tions, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall sub­mit a re­port to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil on the com­pos­i­tion of the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions for the at­ten­tion of the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

¹ The term of of­fice of mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions shall be lim­ited to a total of twelve years; it shall end on the ex­piry of the cor­res­pond­ing cal­en­dar year.

² In jus­ti­fied in­di­vidu­al cases, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend the term of of­fice to a max­im­um of 16 years.

³ The term lim­it does not ap­ply to fed­er­al em­ploy­ees whose mem­ber­ship is ne­ces­sary for the per­form­ance of their du­ties or is made man­dat­ory by an­oth­er en­act­ment.

¹ Each ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sion shall have a sec­ret­ari­at that shall be run by an of­fice in the Cent­ral Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

² The head and the oth­er em­ploy­ees of the Sec­ret­ari­at are sub­ject to the fed­er­al law on per­son­nel that ap­plies in the Cent­ral Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

³ Derog­at­ing pro­vi­sions of spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion or pro­vi­sions in the elec­tion or­der shall re­main re­served.

Com­mis­sions that may in terms of their elec­tion or­der com­mu­nic­ate without con­sult­ing the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall ex­er­cise due re­straint when provid­ing the pub­lic with in­form­a­tion on polit­ic­al is­sues.

¹ In ac­cord­ance with the or­gan­isa­tion­al le­gis­la­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall elect the mem­bers of the man­age­ment bod­ies of fed­er­al pub­lic or­gan­isa­tions, in par­tic­u­lar the mem­bers of the man­age­ment boards of fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions.⁴⁴

^1bis Where the elec­tion is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of an­oth­er elect­or­al body or or­gan­isa­tion­al le­gis­la­tion un­der pub­lic or private law provides for the rep­res­ent­a­tion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion on a man­age­ment body, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point or elect the mem­bers of the cor­res­pond­ing man­age­ment body, in par­tic­u­lar the rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to be elec­ted by the gen­er­al meet­ing and the rep­res­ent­at­ives to be ap­poin­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 762 and 926 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁴⁵.⁴⁶

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up a re­quire­ments pro­file for each or­gan­isa­tion con­tain­ing the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al re­quire­ments for a rep­res­ent­at­ive. It shall ex­er­cise its right to elect and ap­point on the basis of this re­quire­ment pro­file.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set a wait­ing peri­od in the elec­tion res­ol­u­tion for mem­bers of ad­min­is­trat­ive and in­sti­tu­tion­al coun­cils of fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions en­trus­ted with su­per­vis­ory and reg­u­lat­ory du­ties if it is to be ex­pec­ted that the im­me­di­ate ap­point­ment of a mem­ber after leav­ing the ad­min­is­trat­ive and in­sti­tu­tion­al coun­cil to a po­s­i­tion with em­ploy­ers or cli­ents in the su­per­vised or reg­u­lated area will lead to a con­flict of in­terest.

² A con­flict of in­terest ex­ists in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

the cred­ib­il­ity and repu­ta­tion of the in­sti­tu­tion con­cerned or of the Con­fed­er­a­tion may be ad­versely af­fected by this ap­point­ment;

b.

a coun­cil mem­ber has in­flu­ence over in­di­vidu­al de­cisions or ac­cess to in­form­a­tion in such a way that he or she would no longer ap­pear to be im­par­tial if he or she worked for an em­ploy­er or cli­ent in the reg­u­lated or su­per­vised sec­tor.

³ Art­icle 8e^ter para­graphs 3–6 ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, with the co­oper­a­tion of the de­part­ments, shall pub­lish in elec­tron­ic form a list of the mem­bers of non-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions, the mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing bod­ies of fed­er­al or­gan­isa­tions and the rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Con­fed­er­a­tion in or­gan­isa­tions un­der pub­lic or private law.⁴⁹

² The list shall con­tain the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion on the per­sons re­ferred to in para­graph 1:

a.

sur­name and first name;

b.

gender;

c.

moth­er tongue;

d.

year of birth;

e.

title;

f.⁵⁰

rel­ev­ant out­side in­terests;

g.⁵¹

can­ton ac­cord­ing to cor­res­pond­ence ad­dress.

³ …⁵²

⁴ Once the elec­tion has been held, the data shall be made avail­able un­til the per­son leaves the body con­cerned.

⁵ They may be his­tor­icised for stat­ist­ic­al pur­poses.

Any per­son who has been elec­ted as a mem­ber or as a sub­sti­tute mem­ber of an ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sion and who serves on that com­mis­sion shall be en­titled to re­mu­ner­a­tion in terms of this Sec­tion.

The ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary ad­min­is­trat­ive and ex­ec­ut­ive com­mis­sions are sub­divided in terms of the re­mu­ner­a­tion of their mem­bers in­to:

a.

so­cial policy com­mis­sions that sup­port the Fed­er­al As­sembly, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and deal primar­ily with so­cial policy is­sues;

b.

mar­ket policy com­mis­sions that su­per­vise or sig­ni­fic­antly sup­port the func­tion­ing of a mar­ket.

¹ The so­cial policy com­mis­sions shall be al­loc­ated to the fol­low­ing re­mu­ner­a­tion cat­egor­ies with re­gard to the re­mu­ner­a­tion of their mem­bers in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments for the mem­bers and with the tasks of the com­mis­sion:

a.

Cat­egory G3, if the com­mis­sion’s activ­it­ies re­quire a high level of spe­cif­ic ex­pert­ise from its mem­bers, namely if the mem­bers must be tech­nic­al au­thor­it­ies in the com­mis­sion’s field and pos­sess know­ledge that can­not be ac­quired at short no­tice;

b.

Cat­egory G2, if the com­mis­sion's activ­it­ies re­quire a high level of gen­er­al ex­pert­ise from its mem­bers and the com­mis­sion has sov­er­eign de­cision-mak­ing powers;

c.

Cat­egory G1, if the com­mis­sion's activ­it­ies re­quire a high level of gen­er­al ex­pert­ise from its mem­bers and the com­mis­sion has ad­vis­ory tasks.

² The al­loc­a­tion of the so­cial policy com­mis­sions to the com­pens­a­tion cat­egor­ies is reg­u­lated in An­nex 2 num­ber 1.⁵⁵

¹ The mem­bers and sub­sti­tute mem­bers of so­cial policy com­mis­sions are en­titled to a daily al­low­ance for their com­mis­sion activ­it­ies.

² The rates lis­ted in An­nex 2 Num­ber 1 ap­ply. These ap­ply to the Vice-Pres­id­ent and to the oth­er mem­bers.⁵⁶

³ The Pres­id­ent shall re­ceive a daily al­low­ance of 25 per cent more. In jus­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cases, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may pay the Pres­id­ent a max­im­um of twice the daily al­low­ance.

^3bis If the spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion or the es­tab­lish­ment or­der re­quires a mem­ber of a com­mis­sion to be in­de­pend­ent of the in­dustry whose activ­it­ies fall with­in the com­mis­sion's re­mit, and if this re­stricts the mem­ber in the ex­er­cise of his or her pro­fes­sion­al activ­it­ies, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may:

a.

in­crease his or her daily al­low­ance by a max­im­um of 50 per cent; in the case of the Pres­id­ent, a daily al­low­ance that has been in­creased in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 shall be taken in­to ac­count; and

b.

pay the mem­ber a lump sum of no more than CHF 30,000 per year in ad­di­tion to his or her daily al­low­ance; the lump sums paid shall be shown and jus­ti­fied in the re­port on the gen­er­al elec­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8h para­graph 3.⁵⁷

⁴ If a mem­ber is ex­cep­tion­ally re­quired to work out­side of meet­ings and in­spec­tions in study­ing files and re­ports or pre­par­ing pa­pers, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may pay him or her a max­im­um of 16 ad­di­tion­al daily al­low­ances per year. If an as­sign­ment stip­u­lated in the spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion re­quires more time or ef­fort, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may au­thor­ise the pay­ment of more than 16 ad­di­tion­al daily al­low­ances in in­di­vidu­al cases. If more than the 16 ad­di­tion­al daily al­low­ances are paid, this shall be re­por­ted and jus­ti­fied in the re­port on the gen­er­al elec­tions pur­su­ant to Art­icle 8h para­graph 3.⁵⁸

⁵ If a mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion has to leave his or her place of res­id­ence on the day be­fore the meet­ing or is only able to re­turn there on the day after the meet­ing, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall pay him or her half a daily al­low­ance for the day of travel.

⁶ It is not per­mit­ted to claim sev­er­al daily al­low­ances for one and the same day, even if sev­er­al dif­fer­ent or sep­ar­ately cal­cul­able activ­it­ies have been car­ried out.

⁷ The rates are not ad­jus­ted to take ac­count of in­fla­tion.

¹ The mar­ket policy com­mis­sions shall be al­loc­ated to the fol­low­ing com­pens­a­tion cat­egor­ies with re­gard to the com­pens­a­tion of their mem­bers de­pend­ing on the im­pact of the res­ults of their work:

a.

Cat­egory M3, if the res­ults of the com­mis­sion's work have an im­pact on the na­tion­al eco­nomy as a whole;

b.

Cat­egory M2/A, if the res­ults of the com­mis­sion's work have an in­flu­ence on an en­tire in­dustry;

c.

Cat­egory M2/B, if the res­ults of the com­mis­sion's work have an in­flu­ence on an en­tire in­dustry, but the com­mis­sion only sup­ports the func­tion­ing of a mar­ket and does not su­per­vise it;

d.

Cat­egory M1, if the res­ults of the com­mis­sion's work have an in­flu­ence on an in­dus­tri­al sec­tor or if the com­mis­sion per­forms tasks in­volving ar­bit­ra­tion.

² The al­loc­a­tion of the mar­ket policy com­mis­sions to the re­mu­ner­a­tion cat­egor­ies is reg­u­lated in An­nex 2 para­graph 2.⁵⁹

¹ The mem­bers of mar­ket policy com­mis­sions are en­titled to lump-sum com­pens­a­tion for their com­mis­sion activ­it­ies.

² The rates lis­ted in An­nex 2 num­ber 2 ap­ply.⁶⁰

³ These rates in­clude all costs, with the ex­cep­tion of the re­im­burse­ment of ex­penses.

⁴ The rates ap­ply to a full-time work­load; the basis for cal­cu­la­tion is 220 work­ing days per year. In the case of part-time po­s­i­tions, the de­gree of em­ploy­ment shall be de­term­ined in the elec­tion res­ol­u­tion, if it is not spe­cified in the reg­u­la­tions on the or­gan­isa­tion of the com­mis­sion con­cerned.⁶¹

⁵ The rates are not ad­jus­ted to take ac­count of in­fla­tion.

¹ The re­im­burse­ment of ex­penses for mem­bers and sub­sti­tute mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions shall be gov­erned by the cor­res­pond­ing pro­vi­sions for fed­er­al staff.

² Mem­bers who are re­quired to take spe­cial or­gan­isa­tion­al meas­ures to look after chil­dren or re­l­at­ives in need of care in or­der to work for the com­mis­sion may ap­ply to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity for re­im­burse­ment of their ex­penses.⁶²

¹ Mem­bers and sub­sti­tute mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions who are in an em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship with the Cent­ral or De­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion are not en­titled to re­mu­ner­a­tion.

² The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may grant ex­cep­tions if mem­ber­ship of the com­mis­sion is not con­nec­ted with em­ploy­ment with the Cent­ral or De­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

³ Re­mu­ner­a­tion for busi­ness trips, meals and overnight stays shall be in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions ap­plic­able to such mem­bers.

Mem­bers of ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions may only be re­mu­ner­ated at the rates ap­plic­able to their com­mis­sion. Ad­di­tion­al re­mu­ner­a­tion for activ­it­ies re­lated to the man­date of the Com­mis­sion shall be ex­cluded.

(Art. 3 GAOA)

The Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall act with­in the bounds of fed­er­al law and of the aims and pri­or­it­ies set by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. It shall ob­serve the fol­low­ing prin­ciples in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

It re­cog­nises any new need for ac­tion at an early stage and de­rives aims, strategies and meas­ures from this.

b.

It ar­ranges its activ­it­ies ac­cord­ing to im­port­ance and ur­gency.

c.

It provides its ser­vices in a cit­izen-ori­ented, sus­tain­able, ef­fect­ive and eco­nom­ic­al man­ner.

(Art. 8, 35, 36 GAOA)

¹ Man­agers at all levels shall act in ac­cord­ance with the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

They lead by agree­ing on ob­ject­ives and im­pacts.

b.

They shall peri­od­ic­ally as­sess the per­form­ance of their ad­min­is­trat­ive units and their em­ploy­ees.

c.

They shall ad­apt pro­cesses and or­gan­isa­tion to new needs in a timely man­ner.

d.

They shall use their room for man­oeuvre and de­cision-mak­ing powers and also grant these to their em­ploy­ees.

e.

They shall pro­mote a cul­ture of will­ing­ness to learn and change.

f.

They shall en­sure a res­ult-ori­ented and in­ter­dis­cip­lin­ary way of work­ing.

² In all oth­er re­spects, the per­son­nel le­gis­la­tion and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil’s per­son­nel policy guidelines ap­ply in par­tic­u­lar.

(Art. 47 para. 1 GAOA)

¹ The sig­ni­fic­ance of an item of busi­ness shall be de­cis­ive for the al­loc­a­tion of re­spons­ib­il­ity for tak­ing a de­cision in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 47 para­graph 1 GAOA.

² As a rule, re­spons­ib­il­ity shall be al­loc­ated to the unit where the re­quired polit­ic­al and tech­nic­al com­pet­ence is con­cen­trated. As­sign­ment to units be­low of­fice level shall only be made in jus­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cases.

³ In in­di­vidu­al cases, an item of busi­ness shall be sub­mit­ted to the next high­er unit for a de­cision or for the is­su­ing of a dir­ect­ive if its par­tic­u­lar im­port­ance or com­plex­ity so re­quires.

¹ Ad­min­is­trat­ive units are ob­liged to co­oper­ate. They sup­port and in­form each oth­er.

² They shall co­ordin­ate their activ­it­ies and align them with the over­all policy of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

³ They shall provide oth­er ad­min­is­trat­ive units with the in­form­a­tion re­quired for the ful­fil­ment of their stat­utory du­ties.

¹ Ad­min­is­trat­ive units shall en­sure the par­ti­cip­a­tion of all units with an in­terest in the pre­par­a­tion of their de­cisions.⁶⁴

² For this pur­pose, they shall in­vite the units with an in­terest to sub­mit a writ­ten opin­ion, un­less an­oth­er en­act­ment provides for a dif­fer­ent form of par­ti­cip­a­tion.⁶⁵

^2bis The pro­vi­sions on Fed­er­al Coun­cil busi­ness (Art. 4⁾ ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to par­ti­cip­a­tion in the pre­par­a­tion of le­gis­lat­ive texts.⁶⁶

³ If con­sent is re­quired, dif­fer­ences shall be settled by the units in­volved them­selves. Ex­cep­tion­ally, they may de­mand a set­tle­ment of dif­fer­ences at the next high­er level.

¹ If a fed­er­al pro­ject af­fects es­sen­tial can­ton­al or com­mun­al in­terests, the de­part­ment con­cerned or the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall in­volve the can­ton­al bod­ies con­cerned and, if ap­pro­pri­ate, the na­tion­al um­brella or­gan­isa­tions for com­munes, towns and moun­tain re­gions in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

² Es­sen­tial in­terests in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 are af­fected in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

the pro­ject is to be im­ple­men­ted in whole or in part by can­ton­al or com­mun­al bod­ies and im­ple­ment­a­tion re­quires con­sid­er­able hu­man or fin­an­cial re­sources on their part;

b.

can­ton­al or com­mun­al bod­ies must be re­or­gan­ised; or

c.

can­ton­al or com­mun­al bod­ies must make sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the law.

(Art. 53 GAOA)

¹ The Con­fer­ence of Sec­ret­ar­ies Gen­er­al is the su­preme co­ordin­at­ing body. It con­trib­utes to en­sur­ing for­ward-look­ing, ef­fect­ive and co­her­ent ad­min­is­trat­ive ac­tion. It shall in­volve oth­er per­sons or bod­ies.

² It par­ti­cip­ates in the plan­ning, pre­par­a­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of Fed­er­al Coun­cil busi­ness and in the set­tle­ment of dif­fer­ences.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on how the Con­fer­ence is or­gan­ised and on its work­ing meth­ods.⁶⁸

(Art. 6 para. 1, 25 para. 2 let. a, 32 let. a, 36 para. 1, 51, 52 GAOA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on the pri­or­it­ies, aims and means re­quired for plan­ning.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil's plans com­prise:

a.

gen­er­al plans that en­com­pass all fed­er­al policy fields; these in­clude gov­ern­ment policy guidelines pur­su­ant to Art­icle 18 and the an­nu­al ob­ject­ives of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil pur­su­ant to Art­icle 19 as sec­tor­al plans and fin­an­cial plans pur­su­ant to the Fin­an­cial Budget Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1989⁶⁹and the Fin­an­cial Budget Or­din­ance of 11 June 1990⁷⁰;

b.

spe­cif­ic plans for in­di­vidu­al fed­er­al policy fields or parts there­of;

c.

fur­ther plans as re­quired.

³ The sec­tor­al and fin­an­cial plans shall be co­ordin­ated as far as pos­sible in terms of tim­ing and con­tent. The in­di­vidu­al areas of re­spons­ib­il­ity are grouped in­to policy fields.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall pre­pare the sec­tor­al plans in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter a. The Fed­er­al Fin­ance Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FFA)⁷¹ shall pre­pare the budget and fin­an­cial plan. In do­ing so, they work with the de­part­ments.

⁵ The plans of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the de­part­ments are bind­ing for their sub­or­din­ate ad­min­is­trat­ive units.

(Art. 45^bis Par­lPA⁷²)

¹ Gov­ern­ment policy guidelines provide a com­pre­hens­ive policy ori­ent­a­tion frame­work for gov­ern­ment activ­ity in a le­gis­lature peri­od.

² They as­sess the res­ults of the pre­vi­ous le­gis­lature peri­od.

³ They define the aims, im­pacts and pri­or­ity meas­ures and des­ig­nate the areas in which state ser­vices must be re­viewed or can be re­duced.

(Art. 51 GAOA)

¹ The an­nu­al ob­ject­ives of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set out the main fea­tures of the gov­ern­ment's activ­it­ies for the com­ing year, spe­cify aims and meas­ures and des­ig­nate the busi­ness to be ap­proved for sub­mis­sion to the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

² The an­nu­al ob­ject­ives form a basis for the Fed­er­al Coun­cil's busi­ness plan­ning in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2, for con­trolling in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 21, for su­per­vi­sion in ac­cord­ance with Sec­tion 5 and for an­nu­al busi­ness re­port­ing in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 45 of the Par­lia­ment­ary Pro­ced­ure Act of 23 March 1962⁷³ (Par­lPA).

(Art. 51 GAOA)

¹ The de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall co­ordin­ate their an­nu­al ob­ject­ives with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil’s plans and sub­mit them to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al.

² They shall re­port on their activ­it­ies as part of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil's an­nu­al busi­ness re­port in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 45 Par­lPA⁷⁴.

¹ Con­trolling is a man­age­ment in­stru­ment for the pro­cess-re­lated mon­it­or­ing of the achieve­ment of ob­ject­ives at all levels.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall be sup­por­ted in its con­trolling by the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery and the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance. They shall work with the de­part­ments.

³ The de­part­ments are re­spons­ible for con­trolling in their area. They shall co­ordin­ate their con­trolling with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil's con­trolling.

¹ The ad­min­is­trat­ive units shall main­tain re­cords of their own busi­ness activ­it­ies us­ing a re­cords man­age­ment sys­tem.

² For this pur­pose, they shall use elec­tron­ic re­cords and pro­cess man­age­ment sys­tems in ac­cord­ance with the GEVER Or­din­ance of 3 April 2019⁷⁶, un­less le­gis­la­tion provides for a dif­fer­ent type of re­cords and pro­cess man­age­ment.

(Art. 38a GAOA)

¹ The de­part­ments or the agen­cies des­ig­nated by them shall con­clude ser­vice level agree­ments with their ad­min­is­trat­ive units. These shall cov­er as a min­im­um:

a.

the an­nu­al ob­ject­ives of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the de­part­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 19 and 20;

b.

oth­er im­port­ant pro­jects with mile­stones and dead­lines;

c.

the per­form­ance and im­pact tar­gets of the ser­vice groups, which are usu­ally provided with para­met­ers and tar­get val­ues.

² No ser­vice level agree­ment needs to be con­cluded with:

a.

the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery;

b.

the Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and In­form­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er;

c.

the Fed­er­al Gam­ing Board;

d.

the Swiss Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice;

e.

the Price Su­per­visor;

f.

the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion;

g.

the Swiss Trans­port­a­tion Safety In­vest­ig­a­tion Board;

h.

the Fed­er­al Postal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion;

i.⁷⁸

the Rail Trans­port Com­mis­sion;

j.

the Fed­er­al Elec­tri­city Com­mis­sion;

k.

der Fed­er­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Com­mis­sion;

l.

the In­de­pend­ent Com­plaints Au­thor­ity for Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion.

(Art. 38a para. 5 GAOA)

¹ The de­part­ments or the agen­cies des­ig­nated by them shall de­term­ine when and in what form the ad­min­is­trat­ive units shall re­port on the achieve­ment of ob­ject­ives and, if ne­ces­sary, on cor­rect­ive meas­ures.

² The FFA shall is­sue dir­ect­ives on the re­view of the struc­ture and ob­ject­ives of the ser­vice groups in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 38a para­graph 5 GAOA.

The re­quire­ment for two sig­na­tures does not ap­ply to:

a.

con­tracts, rul­ings and oth­er form­al fed­er­al com­mit­ments re­lat­ing to per­son­nel;

b.

in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies;

c.

con­tracts, rul­ings and oth­er form­al com­mit­ments of the Fed­er­al Tax Ad­min­is­tra­tion that:

1.

are based on the Value Ad­ded Tax Act of 12 June 2009⁸⁰, the With­hold­ing Tax Act of 13 Oc­to­ber 1965⁸¹ or the Fed­er­al Act of 27 June 1973 on Stamp Duty⁸², and

2.

are not signed in­di­vidu­ally by a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the au­thor­ity due to their large num­ber (mass pro­cessing).

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, in co­oper­a­tion with the de­part­ments, shall be re­spons­ible for in­form­ing the Fed­er­al As­sembly, the can­tons and the pub­lic about the Fed­er­al Coun­cil’s de­cisions, in­ten­tions and meas­ures. It shall at­tend to the re­quired plan­ning and draw up prin­ciples for the Fed­er­al Coun­cil's com­mu­nic­a­tion policy.

² The de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall be re­spons­ible for in­tern­al and ex­tern­al in­form­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion on their busi­ness. They shall place these in the over­all con­text of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil's com­mu­nic­a­tion policy. They shall reg­u­late the in­form­a­tion tasks of the units sub­or­din­ate to them.

³ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, in co­oper­a­tion with the Con­fer­ence of In­form­a­tion Ser­vices, shall be re­spons­ible for the co­ordin­a­tion of in­form­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion and may is­sue dir­ect­ives for this pur­pose.

⁴ If ne­ces­sary, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may cent­ral­ise in­form­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion with the Pres­id­ent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, a de­part­ment or an­oth­er des­ig­nated of­fice. The des­ig­nated body shall be giv­en ap­pro­pri­ate powers of to is­sue dir­ect­ives.

¹ Ad­min­is­trat­ive units may op­er­ate their own pres­ences (pro­files) on so­cial me­dia in or­der to provide in­form­a­tion in­so­far as:

a.

the con­tent of these pro­files is ac­cess­ible to all per­sons over the age of ma­jor­ity who are res­id­ent in Switzer­land;

b.

they can make their pro­files and con­tent in­ac­cess­ible at any time.

² In­form­a­tion provided on so­cial me­dia must also be avail­able via chan­nels that the ad­min­is­trat­ive units them­selves con­trol and that are freely ac­cess­ible to every­one.

³ So­cial me­dia are elec­tron­ic plat­forms that are used to com­mu­nic­ate with the pub­lic and which en­able users to provide their own con­tent for oth­er users.

¹ Ad­min­is­trat­ive units may op­er­ate pro­files with in­ter­act­ive func­tions on so­cial me­dia, provided that on these pro­files:

a.

all per­sons over the age of ma­jor­ity res­id­ent in Switzer­land can make con­tri­bu­tions;

b.

the ad­min­is­trat­ive units can re­spond to users’ con­tri­bu­tions with their own con­tri­bu­tions; and

c.

the ad­min­is­trat­ive units can hide, de­lete or oth­er­wise sup­press users’ con­tri­bu­tions.

² The ad­min­is­trat­ive units shall en­sure that they can be con­tac­ted via their pro­files.

¹ Ad­min­is­trat­ive units may sup­press con­tri­bu­tions in their pro­files provided:

a.

there are spe­cif­ic in­dic­a­tions that these con­tri­bu­tions:

1.

in­cite the com­mis­sion of mis­de­mean­ours or felon­ies,

2.

in­cite hatred or vi­ol­ence,

3.

con­tain con­tent or rep­res­ent­a­tions of vi­ol­ence that are of­fens­ive to cer­tain per­sons, de­fam­at­ory, threat­en­ing, dis­crim­in­at­ory or por­no­graph­ic,

4.

en­cour­age be­ha­viour that ser­i­ously en­dangers per­sons’ health or safety,

5.

con­tain com­mer­cial ad­vert­ising, or

6.

have been gen­er­ated by a ma­chine; or

b.

that these con­tri­bu­tions are pos­ted re­peatedly and:

1.

are clearly ir­rel­ev­ant, or

2.

are clearly false in their con­tent and there are spe­cif­ic in­dic­a­tions that they serve the pur­pose of dis­in­form­a­tion.

² If an ex­cep­tion­ally large num­ber of con­tri­bu­tions are re­ceived, the sup­pres­sion of con­tri­bu­tions may be tem­por­ar­ily auto­mated.

³ In the event of re­peated or par­tic­u­larly ser­i­ous in­fringe­ments, an ad­min­is­trat­ive unit may block the user for a max­im­um of two years.

⁴ The block shall be lif­ted on ex­piry of the block­ing peri­od if the user so re­quests.

(Art. 8 paras. 3 and 4, 36 para. 3 GAOA)

¹ Through su­per­vi­sion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall en­sure the ful­fil­ment of con­sti­tu­tion­al and stat­utory du­ties.

² Su­per­vi­sion of the Cent­ral Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­pre­hens­ive. It shall be gov­erned by the prin­ciples set out in Art­icles 11 and 12.

³ The sub­ject mat­ter, scope and prin­ciples of su­per­vi­sion of the de­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and of the en­tit­ies re­ferred to in Art­icle 2 para­graph 4 GAOA shall be gov­erned by spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion and shall be based on the re­spect­ive de­gree of autonomy.

(Art. 8 paras. 4 and 5 GAOA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall act as the own­er and carry out the as­so­ci­ated su­per­vi­sion and con­trol in re­la­tion to the autonom­ous units in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 5 GAOA as a whole.

² The de­part­ment with the closest rel­ev­ance to the field in ques­tion shall ex­er­cise su­per­vi­sion on be­half of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, ex­er­cise the own­er's rights and serve as the con­tact for the man­age­ment bod­ies of the autonom­ous units. In the case of autonom­ous units of ma­jor im­port­ance for the fed­er­al budget, it shall ex­er­cise the own­er­ship rights jointly with the FFA. The de­part­ments to which the autonom­ous units are al­loc­ated and the units for which joint ex­er­cise of own­er­ship rights with the FFA ap­plies are lis­ted in An­nex 3.

³ If oth­er de­part­ments and ad­min­is­trat­ive units have a con­nec­tion with the field for which an autonom­ous unit is re­spons­ible, they shall be con­sul­ted in re­la­tion to ful­filling the tasks in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

⁴The Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ari­at of the De­part­ment shall be re­spons­ible for ful­filling the tasks in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2. The De­part­ment may del­eg­ate re­spons­ib­il­ity in writ­ing to a state sec­ret­ari­at or a fed­er­al of­fice provided there are no con­flicts of in­terest, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to reg­u­la­tion, tech­nic­al su­per­vi­sion, ap­point­ment and sub­sid­isa­tion.

⁵ The FFA shall draw up the prin­ciples for the su­per­vi­sion and man­age­ment of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment's autonom­ous units (pub­lic cor­por­ate gov­ernance) and shall en­sure the co­ordin­a­tion of re­port­ing. In do­ing so, it shall work with the de­part­ments and ad­min­is­trat­ive units con­cerned.

(Art. 8 paras. 3 and 4 GAOA)

¹ Con­trol, as an in­stru­ment of su­per­vi­sion, serves:

a.

the in-depth cla­ri­fic­a­tion of spe­cial is­sues arising from cur­rent events or iden­ti­fied griev­ances;

b.

the reg­u­lar re­view of par­tic­u­lar areas of ex­pert­ise.

² As a rule, con­trols are car­ried out by spe­cial bod­ies that are in­de­pend­ent of the con­trolled ad­min­is­trat­ive unit.

(Art. 8 paras. 3 and 4, 25 para. 2 lett. c and d, 32 lett. e GAOA)

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the Pres­id­ent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion are sup­por­ted by the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery in the ex­er­cise of their stat­utory con­trol du­ties. For fur­ther in­ter­de­part­ment­al cla­ri­fic­a­tions, pro­ject or­gan­isa­tions pur­su­ant to Art­icle 56 GAOA or an ex­tern­al con­sult­ant pur­su­ant to Art­icle 57 GAOA may be ap­poin­ted.

(Art. 5 GAOA)

¹ The ad­min­is­trat­ive units shall peri­od­ic­ally and sys­tem­at­ic­ally re­view their tasks, ser­vices, pro­cesses and or­gan­isa­tion to de­term­ine wheth­er they are ne­ces­sary and com­ply with the prin­ciples of Art­icles 11 and 12; they shall ar­range for the re­quired ad­just­ments and re­duc­tions to be car­ried out meas­ures.

² The Con­fer­ence of Sec­ret­ar­ies Gen­er­al shall play a co­ordin­at­ing role.

³ The FFA, in con­sulta­tion with the Con­fer­ence of Sec­ret­ar­ies Gen­er­al, shall co­ordin­ate the re­view un­der para­graph 1 with the re­view un­der Art­icle 5 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990⁹¹.⁹²

¹ An ad­min­is­trat­ive in­quiry is a spe­cial con­trol pro­ced­ure in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 25 and 26 which cla­ri­fies wheth­er there are mat­ters in re­la­tion to which of­fi­cial in­ter­ven­tion is re­quired in the pub­lic in­terest.

² An ad­min­is­trat­ive in­quiry is not dir­ec­ted against spe­cif­ic per­sons. A dis­cip­lin­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion pur­su­ant to Art­icle 98 of the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Or­din­ance of 3 Ju­ly 2001⁹⁴ and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings re­main re­served.

¹ An ad­min­is­trat­ive in­quiry may not ob­struct crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tions or in­vest­ig­a­tions by par­lia­ment­ary su­per­vis­ory bod­ies.

² If a pro­ced­ur­al con­flict is fore­see­able, the or­der­ing au­thor­ity shall sus­pend or ter­min­ate the ad­min­is­trat­ive in­quiry.

¹ The heads of the de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cel­lor shall or­der ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tions in the ad­min­is­trat­ive units un­der their au­thor­ity. They may del­eg­ate this re­spons­ib­il­ity to the ad­min­is­trat­ive units sub­or­din­ate to them.

² If an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion af­fects more than one de­part­ment, in­clud­ing the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall or­der the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

¹ An ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion shall be en­trus­ted to per­sons who:

a.

meet the ne­ces­sary per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al and tech­nic­al re­quire­ments for such a task;

b.

are not act­ive in the area of re­spons­ib­il­ity to be in­vest­ig­ated; and

c.

are not sim­ul­tan­eously and in the same mat­ter en­trus­ted with dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings or oth­er per­son­nel law pro­ceed­ings.

² The in­vest­ig­a­tion may be del­eg­ated to per­sons out­side the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Such per­sons shall act as agents of the or­der­ing body.

³ The in­vest­ig­at­ive bod­ies may is­sue dir­ect­ives with­in the scope of their man­date, but may not is­sue rul­ings.

⁴ The pro­vi­sions on re­cus­al in Art­icle 10 of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968⁹⁵ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure (APA) ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.

¹ The or­der­ing body shall is­sue a writ­ten in­vest­ig­a­tion man­date. It sets out in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the sub­ject of the in­vest­ig­a­tion;

b.

the de­tails of the ap­point­ment of the in­vest­ig­at­ive body;

c.

the powers of the in­vest­ig­at­ive body;

d.

the duty to main­tain of­fi­cial secrecy;

e.

the re­mu­ner­a­tion to be paid to the in­vest­ig­at­ive body;

f.

the ne­ces­sary aids provided;

g.

the in­volve­ment of aux­il­i­ary bod­ies;

h.

the form in which re­ports are sub­mit­ted;

i.

the dead­lines.

² Any ex­ist­ing files shall be at­tached to the in­vest­ig­a­tion man­date.

¹ The or­der­ing au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the ad­min­is­trat­ive bod­ies con­cerned of the open­ing of the ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion, to­geth­er with the reas­on for and pur­pose of the in­vest­ig­a­tion and the in­vest­ig­at­ing body.

² It shall is­sue the ne­ces­sary dir­ect­ives on the ac­cess and in­spec­tion rights of the in­vest­ig­at­ive bod­ies and on the duty of the em­ploy­ees con­cerned to provide in­form­a­tion.

¹ In or­der to es­tab­lish the facts of the case, the in­vest­ig­at­ive body shall ob­tain evid­ence by the means set out in Art­icle 12 APA⁹⁶. However, there is no form­al ex­am­in­a­tion of wit­nesses in an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion.

² The fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies and em­ploy­ees in­volved in the ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion are ob­liged to co­oper­ate in es­tab­lish­ing the facts of the case.

³ If it be­comes ap­par­ent in the course of an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion that in­form­a­tion covered by the duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity is re­quired from oth­er de­part­ments or from the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, the in­vest­ig­at­ive body must first ob­tain the con­sent of the head of the de­part­ment or of the Fed­er­al Chan­cel­lor. In oth­er cases, Art­icle 14 ap­plies.

⁴ The au­thor­it­ies and per­sons in­volved in the ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion shall have the op­por­tun­ity to in­spect all files that con­cern them and to com­ment on them (Art. 26-28 APA).

⁵ They have the right to be heard (Art. 29–33 APA).

¹ The per­sons in­volved in the ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion are en­titled to be rep­res­en­ted and have leg­al as­sist­ance.

² The in­vest­ig­at­ing body shall in­form the per­sons who are to be in­ter­viewed that they may re­fuse to an­swer the ques­tions if by do­ing so they may in­crim­in­ate them­selves in dis­cip­lin­ary or crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

³ It shall in­form per­sons out­side the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion who are to be in­ter­viewed that their pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion is vol­un­tary.

Each de­part­ment that is re­ques­ted by the in­vest­ig­at­ive body to dis­close per­son­al data must en­sure and is it­self re­spons­ible for en­sur­ing that the pro­vi­sions of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020⁹⁸ on are com­plied with.

¹ The in­vest­ig­at­ive body shall de­liv­er all in­vest­ig­a­tion files and a re­port to the or­der­ing body.

² In the re­port, it shall de­scribe the pro­cess and set out the res­ults of the in­vest­ig­a­tion and pro­pos­als for fur­ther ac­tion.

³ The or­der­ing au­thor­ity shall in­form the au­thor­it­ies and per­sons in­volved in an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion of the res­ult.

⁴ The or­der­ing au­thor­ity shall de­cide on the con­sequences of an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion.

⁵ The res­ults of an ad­min­is­trat­ive in­vest­ig­a­tion may be used as a basis for ini­ti­at­ing oth­er pro­ceed­ings, in par­tic­u­lar pro­ceed­ings un­der per­son­nel law.

(Art. 61b para. 1 GAOA)

¹ Can­ton­al acts and or­din­ances that must be ap­proved by the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery. The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery may re­quire their sub­mis­sion.

² The en­act­ments shall be sub­mit­ted as soon as they have been ad­op­ted by the com­pet­ent can­ton­al au­thor­ity. The hold­ing of a ref­er­en­dum or the ex­piry of a ref­er­en­dum peri­od need not be awaited.

³ The can­tons may sub­mit en­act­ments re­quir­ing ap­prov­al to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery for pre­lim­in­ary ex­am­in­a­tion.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall for­ward en­act­ments sub­mit­ted to it to the com­pet­ent de­part­ment.

² If an en­act­ment does not fall with­in the ex­clus­ive com­pet­ence of a de­part­ment, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall de­term­ine which de­part­ment is re­spons­ible and shall no­ti­fy the oth­er de­part­ments that have an in­terest.

(Art. 61b para. 2 GAOA)

In non-con­ten­tious cases, the De­part­ment shall grant ap­prov­al with­in two months of sub­mis­sion. It shall no­ti­fy the can­ton and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery of the ap­prov­al.

(Art. 61b para. 3 GAOA)

¹ If the De­part­ment comes to the con­clu­sion that ap­prov­al may not be gran­ted be­cause the en­act­ment is con­trary to fed­er­al law or may only be gran­ted with re­ser­va­tions, it shall take an in­ter­im de­cision with­in two months of sub­mis­sion. It shall sub­mit the de­cision to the can­ton with a brief state­ment of the reas­ons and set a dead­line for the can­ton to com­ment.

² If the De­part­ment con­cludes on the basis of the can­ton's opin­ion that there is no vi­ol­a­tion of fed­er­al law, it shall grant ap­prov­al with­in two months of re­ceipt of the can­ton's opin­ion.

³ Oth­er­wise, the De­part­ment shall sub­mit the item of busi­ness to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil with­in two months with a re­quest for ap­prov­al with re­ser­va­tion or for re­fus­al of ap­prov­al.

(Art. 61c para. 1 GAOA)

¹ The con­tract­ing can­tons or a co­ordin­a­tion of­fice des­ig­nated by them shall no­ti­fy the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery of agree­ments between the can­tons or with for­eign coun­tries.

² No­ti­fic­a­tion shall be provided:

a.

in the case of agree­ments between can­tons: after the ad­op­tion of the draft by the in­ter­can­t­on­al body en­trus­ted with its pre­par­a­tion or after the ac­cept­ance of the agree­ment by at least one con­tract­ing can­ton;

b.

in the case of agree­ments con­cluded by the can­tons with for­eign coun­tries: be­fore the agree­ment is con­cluded.

³ The text of the agree­ment shall be at­tached to the no­ti­fic­a­tion.

The can­tons may sub­mit agree­ments among them­selves to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery for pre­lim­in­ary ex­am­in­a­tion.

(Art. 62 para. 1 GAOA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall in­form the non-par­ti­cip­at­ing can­tons (third can­tons) in the form of a no­tice in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette of an agree­ment brought to its at­ten­tion with­in 14 days of re­ceipt of the agree­ment.

² In the no­tice, it shall name the con­tract­ing can­tons, the title of the agree­ment con­cerned and the of­fice where the text of the agree­ment may be ob­tained or in­spec­ted.

³ Para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to con­tracts con­cluded by the can­tons with for­eign coun­tries through the in­ter­me­di­ation of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall for­ward an agree­ment sub­mit­ted to it to the com­pet­ent de­part­ment.

² If an agree­ment does not fall with­in the ex­clus­ive com­pet­ence of a de­part­ment, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall de­term­ine the lead de­part­ment and in­form the oth­er de­part­ments that have an in­terest.

(Art. 62 paras. 2 and 3 GAOA)

¹ The De­part­ment shall in­form the con­tract­ing can­tons or the co­ordin­a­tion of­fice and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery of the res­ult of the ex­am­in­a­tion of the agree­ment with­in two months of no­ti­fic­a­tion in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 27q.

²If the De­part­ment es­tab­lishes that the agree­ment is con­trary to the law or the in­terests of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, it shall raise this ob­jec­tion with the con­tract­ing can­tons and, if ap­pro­pri­ate, with the co­ordin­a­tion of­fice, and shall in­vite them to sub­mit their com­ments.

³ The De­part­ment shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the con­tract­ing can­tons, the co­ordin­a­tion of­fice and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery as to wheth­er or not, on the basis of the opin­ion, the con­flict with the law or the in­terests of the Con­fed­er­a­tion re­mains.

(Art. 62 para. 4 GAOA)

If the con­flict with the law or with the in­terests of the Con­fed­er­a­tion per­sists, the De­part­ment shall re­quest the Fed­er­al Coun­cil to raise an ob­jec­tion to the agree­ment with the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

(Art. 31 para. 3, 43 and 47 GAOA)

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue an or­gan­isa­tion­al or­din­ance for each de­part­ment and for the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery. In par­tic­u­lar, it shall reg­u­late:

a.

the ob­ject­ives, prin­ciples and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of the de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery;

b.

the ob­ject­ives, tasks and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of the groups and of­fices;

c.¹⁰¹

the de­part­ment­al al­loc­a­tion of the de­cent­ral­ised ad­min­is­trat­ive units and, un­less oth­er­wise reg­u­lated, their ob­ject­ives, tasks and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies.

(Art. 37 and 43 par. 4 GAOA)

¹ The de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall is­sue rules of pro­ced­ure for them­selves. In par­tic­u­lar, the fol­low­ing can be reg­u­lated therein:

a.

the ba­sic prin­ciples of the man­age­ment pro­cesses in the de­part­ment or in the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery;

b.

the ba­sic or­gan­isa­tion­al prin­ciples of the de­part­ment and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, un­less they are gov­erned by oth­er pro­vi­sions;

c.

the del­eg­a­tion of sig­nat­ory powers;

d.¹⁰²

the use of ex­tern­al con­sult­ants by groups and of­fices.

² For in­ter­de­part­ment­al tasks, the com­pet­ent de­part­ments or the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery may is­sue joint rules of pro­ced­ure.

³ The rules of pro­ced­ure shall be pub­licly ac­cess­ible but shall not be pub­lished in the Of­fi­cial Com­pil­a­tion of Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ar­ies' Con­fer­ence, the de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall en­sure the prop­er func­tion­ing of the ad­min­is­tra­tion by is­su­ing dir­ect­ives and work­ing aids.

² The dir­ect­ives and work­ing aids shall reg­u­late in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the pre­par­a­tion of Fed­er­al Coun­cil busi­ness;

b.¹⁰³

...

c.

the struc­ture of Fed­er­al Coun­cil dis­patches and re­ports to the Fed­er­al As­sembly;

d.

the draft­ing and lay­out of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion;

e.

the prin­ciples for a level-ap­pro­pri­ate al­loc­a­tion of re­spons­ib­il­it­ies;

f.

the pre­lim­in­ary le­gis­lat­ive pro­ced­ure, in­so­far as it is not reg­u­lated in the Or­din­ance of 17 June 1991¹⁰⁴on the Con­sulta­tion Pro­ced­ure;

g.

the use of re­sources, in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to per­son­nel, fin­ance, IT and lo­gist­ics;

h.

the com­pos­i­tion and elec­tion, man­dates, pro­ced­ures and busi­ness deal­ings of ad­min­is­trat­ive, plan­ning and co­ordin­a­tion bod­ies;

i.

cul­tiv­at­ing the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions;

j.

the com­mer­cial sec­ond­ary activ­it­ies of ad­min­is­trat­ive units;

k.

the duty to keep re­cords;

l.

au­thor­isa­tions of the Pres­id­ent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion in ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 26 para­graph 4 GAOA;

m.

the co­ordin­a­tion of in­form­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion.

¹ The de­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall de­cide with­in their area of re­spons­ib­il­ity on au­thor­isa­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 271 para­graph 1 of the Crim­in­al Code¹⁰⁶ to carry out activ­it­ies on be­half of a for­eign state.

^1bis Au­thor­isa­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 22 of the Fed­er­al De­cree of 21 Decem­ber 1995¹⁰⁷ on Co­oper­a­tion with In­ter­na­tion­al Courts for the Pro­sec­u­tion of Ser­i­ous Vi­ol­a­tions of In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man­it­ari­an Law shall be gran­ted by the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Justice.¹⁰⁸

² Cases of polit­ic­al or oth­er fun­da­ment­al im­port­ance shall be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

³ The de­cisions shall be sent to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land and to the de­part­ments that are also in­ter­ested.¹⁰⁹

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil De­cree of 7 Ju­ly 1971¹¹² on the Au­thor­isa­tion of the De­part­ments and the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery to De­cide In­de­pend­ently on Au­thor­isa­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 271 para­graph 1 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code is re­pealed.

¹ Sub­ject to para­graph 2, this Or­din­ance shall come in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 1999.

² Art­icles 26 and 27 come in­to force at the same time as the Or­din­ance on the Or­gan­isa­tion of the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery of 5 May 1999¹¹³.