Federal Act
on the Federal Assembly
(Parliament Act, ParlA)

¹ The as­sembly mem­bers have the right to be provided with in­form­a­tion by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and to in­spect doc­u­ments on any mat­ter of rel­ev­ance to the Con­fed­er­a­tion, provided this is re­quired for the ex­er­cise of their par­lia­ment­ary man­dates.

² An in­di­vidu­al as­sembly mem­ber has no right to in­form­a­tion:

a.

from the joint re­port­ing pro­ced­ure and de­lib­er­a­tions in Fed­er­al Coun­cil meet­ings;

b.

that is clas­si­fied as con­fid­en­tial or secret in the in­terests of state se­cur­ity or the in­tel­li­gence ser­vice, or the dis­clos­ure of which to un­au­thor­ised per­sons may be det­ri­ment­al to na­tion­al in­terests;

c.

that is treated as con­fid­en­tial for the pro­tec­tion of per­son­al pri­vacy.⁸

³ In the event of any dis­agree­ment between an as­sembly mem­ber and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil as to the ex­tent of rights to in­form­a­tion, the as­sembly mem­ber may call on the Presid­ing Col­lege of the coun­cil to which he or she be­longs. The Presid­ing Col­lege me­di­ates between the as­sembly mem­ber and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

⁴ If there is dis­agree­ment between an as­sembly mem­ber and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the Presid­ing Col­lege of the coun­cil has the fi­nal de­cision on wheth­er the in­form­a­tion is re­quired to ex­er­cise the rel­ev­ant par­lia­ment­ary man­date.

⁵ As an al­tern­at­ive to per­mit­ting the in­spec­tion of doc­u­ments, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may sub­mit a re­port to an as­sembly mem­ber if there is dis­agree­ment between the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the as­sembly mem­ber as to wheth­er the as­sembly mem­ber has a right to in­form­a­tion in terms of para­graph 2 and the me­di­ation of Presid­ing Col­lege of the coun­cil is un­suc­cess­ful.

⁶ The Presid­ing Col­lege of the coun­cil has an un­res­tric­ted right to in­spect the doc­u­ments of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion when pre­par­ing to me­di­ate.