61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

emergency plenary powers). This «emergency legislation» did not apply to all
areas of life with equal intensity, however. For example, key areas of private law
remained virtually intact even during the war years: there was no break with
continuity here until the post-war era.
This chapter examines Swiss law and legal practice and its response to Nazi
injustice, highlighting specific problem areas of relevance to the ICE’s research. 2
A distinction is made between public law (5.1) which regulates the legal
relationship between individuals and the state, and private law (5.2), which
governs legal relationships between individuals.
5.1 Public law
In the field of domestic public law, the Swiss legal system underwent a radical
transformation during the period 1933–1945. This discontinuity in public and
administrative law was reflected, above all, in the system of government by
emergency plenary powers (Vollmachtenregime) which was introduced in 1939 by
Parliamentary Decree. By contrast, there was broad continuity in public international
law: it was only towards the end of the war that a reform of international
law took place in response to the atrocities committed by the Nazi
regime.
Government by emergency plenary powers as «emergency law»
In legal terms, the establishment of government by emergency plenary powers
in 1939 was a turning point. With its Emergency Plenary Powers Decree
(Vollmachtenbeschluss) of 30 August 1939, 3 parliament empowered the
government to take all «measures necessary to maintain Switzerland’s security,
independence and neutrality» – including those which violated current constitutional
law. 4 The Federal Assembly thus transferred wide-ranging legislative
powers to the Federal Council, also derogating from the Federal Constitution.
Parliament’s competencies were restricted to specific rights of control, which it
exercised within the framework of the Parliamentary Committees that granted
emergency plenary powers (Vollmachtenkommissionen). 5 This intervention in the
existing state and constitutional order signified a break with democratic and
liberal legal tradition: the comprehensive suspension of the constitutionallyguaranteed
political rights and the concentration of legislative power at Federal
level and in the hands of the executive were symptomatic of a system which
henceforth displayed increasingly centralist, authoritarian and anti-liberal
traits.
Government by emergency plenary powers was not without precedent, however.
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