61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

was the unequal treatment of communists and the extreme-right fronts:
although the Federal Council dissolved both the National Movement of
Switzerland (Nationale Bewegung der Schweiz) and the Swiss Communist Party in
November 1940, organisations such as the «Federal Collection» («Eidgenössische
Sammlung»), which made no secret of their loyalty to the Third Reich, were
permitted to remain in existence. 19 The frequency with which the Federal
Council invoked its emergency powers also seems broadly questionable. In
accordance with the subsidiarity principle, it could – as has been stated – only
exercise its emergency powers if, for reasons of time, a matter could not be dealt
with through normal legislative channels.
It was not until autumn 1949 that the Campaign for a Return to Direct
Democracy (Volksinitiative «Rückkehr zur direkten Demokratie») 20 – which
demanded the restriction of emergency law and the repeal of the Emergency
Decrees within a year – set in train the complete abolition of government by
emergency plenary powers. Against the will of the Federal Council and
parliament, this initiative, which was launched by the rightist Ligue Vaudoise,
was adopted by around 280,000 to 272,000 votes.
Refugee law and refugee policy
Government by emergency plenary powers had an impact on Swiss refugee
policy as well. One specific item of legislation which was based on emergency
law was the Federal Council’s Decree of 17 October 1939 altering the police
regulation for foreigners which, together with the Federal Law on the Residence
and Settlement of Foreigners of 26 March 1931 (Bundesgesetz über Aufenthalt und
Niederlassung der Ausländer, ANAG), 21 formed the legal basis for Switzerland’s
policy towards civilian refugees during the war. 22
Switzerland’s refugee law during the Nazi period did not guarantee full asylum
protection to persons suffering persecution on grounds of their race, religion,
nationality or political convictions and whose lives and physical integrity were
at risk. Under Article 21 ANAG, 23 only refugees who were politically active
and therefore were personally at risk from the authorities in their home
countries («political refugees») could be granted asylum in Switzerland; all
other refugees seeking shelter in Switzerland were excluded, on principle, from
asylum protection. 24 Countless victims of Nazi persecution – such as Jews,
Eastern Europeans, Roma and Sinti – were therefore not deemed to be
«refugees» in the legal sense. Switzerland continued to abide by this narrow
definition until July 1944; it was not considered necessary to expand the legal
definition of refugees on the basis of the 1939 Emergency Plenary Powers
Decree, although the authorities recognised by summer 1942 that the concept
of «political refugees» had become obsolete.
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