Standing Orders of the National Council
(SO-NC)

¹ Dur­ing every or­din­ary ses­sion at least eight hours shall be giv­en over to the pre­lim­in­ary ex­am­in­a­tion of par­lia­ment­ary ini­ti­at­ives and the con­sid­er­a­tion of pro­ced­ur­al re­quests (ex­clud­ing pro­ced­ur­al re­quests de­clared ur­gent). If in ex­cep­tion­al cases it is not pos­sible to al­lot eight hours to these mat­ters over the course of a ses­sion, the time ded­ic­ated to such mat­ters shall be ex­ten­ded in the next ses­sion.²⁰

² Pro­ced­ur­al re­quests sub­mit­ted by in­di­vidu­al mem­bers of the Coun­cil and groups that re­late to the same or a sim­il­ar mat­ter shall be con­sidered in the or­der in which they were sub­mit­ted. Pro­ced­ur­al re­quests that the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has re­ques­ted be ad­op­ted and which are op­posed from the floor of the Coun­cil shall be con­sidered be­fore pro­ced­ur­al re­quests that the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has re­ques­ted be re­jec­ted.²¹

³ A par­lia­ment­ary ini­ti­at­ive that has been sup­por­ted in com­mit­tee by less than one fifth of its mem­bers shall be con­sidered in the Coun­cil un­der the writ­ten pro­ced­ure (Art. 49).

⁴ An in­ter­pel­lant may de­clare his or her sat­is­fac­tion with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil’s re­sponse, even if the Coun­cil re­fuses to de­bate the in­ter­pel­la­tion.