Government and Administration Organisation Act
(GAOA)

¹ De­pend­ing the im­port­ance of an item of busi­ness, it is dealt with by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, a de­part­ment, a group or an of­fice.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets out in an or­din­ance which ad­min­is­trat­ive unit is re­spons­ible for de­cisions about in­di­vidu­al items of busi­ness or in wider areas of busi­ness.

³ If the de­part­ments are un­able to agree on re­spons­ib­il­ity in spe­cif­ic cases, the Pres­id­ent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall de­cide.

⁴ The su­per­or­din­ate ad­min­is­trat­ive units and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may at any time take re­spons­ib­il­ity for de­cid­ing on a par­tic­u­lar item of busi­ness.

⁵ Man­dat­ory re­spons­ib­il­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with the le­gis­la­tion on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice are re­served. If the ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil is not per­mit­ted, the lat­ter may is­sue a dir­ect­ive to the com­pet­ent fed­er­al ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­ity on how to de­cide in ac­cord­ance with the law.

⁶ Fed­er­al Coun­cil busi­ness is del­eg­ated by law to the de­part­ment com­pet­ent for the mat­ter con­cerned where rul­ings must be is­sued that are sub­ject to an ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court. The ap­peal against Fed­er­al Coun­cil rul­ings un­der Art­icle 33 let­ters a and b of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court Act of 17 June 2005⁴⁸ is re­served.⁴⁹