|
( Swiss Federal Council)
The Swiss Federal Council (German Schweizerischer Bundesrat, French Conseil fédéral suisse, Italian Consiglio federale svizzero, Romansh Cussegl federal svizzer) is the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government of Switzerland and serves as the Swiss collective head of state. While the entire council is responsible for leading the federal administration of Switzerland, each Councillor heads one of the seven federal executive departments. The current members of the Federal Council are, in order of seniority The Federal Council was instituted by the 1848 Federal Constitution as the "supreme executive and directorial authority of the Confederation".[2] When the Constitution was written, constitutional democracy was still in its infancy, and the founding fathers of Switzerland had little in the way of examples. While they drew heavily on the U.S. Constitution for the organisation of the federal state as a whole, they opted for the collegial rather than the presidential system for the executive branch of government. This accommodated the long tradition of the rule of collective bodies in Switzerland. Under the Ancien Régime, the cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy had been governed by councils of pre-eminent citizens since time immemorial, and the later Helvetic Republic (with its equivalent Directorate[3]) as well as the cantons that had given themselves liberal constitutions since the 1830s had also had good experiences with that mode of governance.[4]
|
Swiss Federal Council Subcategories
Swiss Federal Council Articles
|
| 
