SWITZERLAND PRESENTS INITIAL REPORT TO COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS

MORNING
HR/ESC/98/31
20 November 1998



Government Representatives Queried on Status of Such Rights,
Existence of "Disadvantaged Groups"


The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights began review this morning of an initial report of Switzerland, querying a Government delegation, among other things, on whether such rights were put on a "lower plateau" than civil and political rights, and if the elderly, Gypsies, persons with disabilities, and women could be described as "disadvantaged groups" in Switzerland, as claimed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in a supplementary report.

Swiss authorities noted several recent developments, including announcement of Government intent to prepare for joining the United Nations, and laws either in effect or in process on labour, equality between men and women, health insurance, old-age insurance and pensions, and unemployment insurance. The chief of the delegation remarked that in addition to preparing the official report, the Government had funded preparation by NGOs of a separate report on the status of economic, social and cultural rights, which had been provided as a supplement.

As one of 137 States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Switzerland is obligated to provide periodic reports to the Committee on efforts to put the treaty into effect.

The 10-member Swiss delegation was led by Jean-Jacques Elmiger, Ambassador of the Federal Office of Economic Development and Employment of the Federal Department of the Economy, and Elisabeth Imesch, Chief of Section of the Federal Office of Social Insurance of the Federal Department of the Interior. The team included officials from Government units on women's rights; public health; international public law; justice; and cantonal public education.

Speaking at the meeting were Committee members Maria de los Angeles Jimenez Butragueno; Eibe Reidel; Walid M. Sa’di; Philippe Texier; Mahmoud Samir Ahmed; Valeri I. Kouznetsov; Nutan Thapalia; Jaime Marchan Romero; Ade Adekuoye; Virginia Bonoan-Dandan; Abdessatar Grissa; Oscar Ceville; and Javier Wimer Zambrano.

The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to continue consideration of the report of Switzerland.

Initial report of Switzerland

The 179-page report (E/1990/5/Add.33) reviews, on an article-by-article basis, efforts to implement the Covenant. It notes, among other things that, "although not explicitly stated, it is accepted in Switzerland that fundamental rights are not absolute and may be subject to restrictions"; and that restrictions have to meet four conditions: they must rest on legal bases, must be justified by an overriding public interest, must comply with the principle of proportionality and other legal principles, and must respect the essence of the fundamental rights concerned and not deprive such rights of their substance. The right to form associations, trade unions and to organize strikes, according to the report, is restricted by the Constitution "inasmuch as it provides that associations whose purpose or means are unlawful or dangerous to the State do not enjoy the protection by the freedom to form associations. The concept of unlawfulness derives from the legal rules in force; the concept of danger is more vague and could lead to a variety of interpretations. However, the Federal Tribunal has decided that only associations which set out to impose their views by means other than peaceful and democratic means must be prohibited." Among problems noted by the report are that each year a Government office on international child abduction registers between 70 and 100 cases of children illegally abducted from Switzerland and taken abroad; and that the number of cases of sexual abuse against minors in the country is estimated at 40,000 to 50,000 per year.

Presentation of Report

JEAN-JACQUES ELMIGER, Ambassador of the Federal Office of Economic Development and Employment of the Federal Department of the Economy, Switzerland, said the document had been drafted in an effort to respect fully the Covenant and the monitoring it called for; it attempted to describe Swiss shortcomings as well as achievements and had been widely disseminated; the Government also had provided financial support for a report prepared by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and this report had been provided to the Committee as a supplement to the Government report.

Among recent developments were a Government announcement that Switzerland would prepare itself for application for membership in the United Nations; entry into force in Switzerland in 1997 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; a new law on labour expected to be adopted on 29 November which would introduce equality between men and women with respect to length of time at work and rest, improve protection for persons working at night and on Sundays, and provide special protection for pregnant women and working mothers; a recognition by Parliament of the right to strike under certain conditions through proposed reform to the federal Constitution, which would have to be voted on by the public in 1999; a new social insurance law which made it mandatory for all to have health insurance; a revision to old age and survivors' insurance, which made changes in pension provisions; and a revision of the law on unemployment insurance to emphasize reintegration of the unemployed into the labour market through such methods as education and training.

Mr. Elmiger said the health status of the population was good; life expectancy was high (82.1 years for women and 75.3 years for men); infant mortality had been reduced; and (with the exception of AIDS) almost complete control had been established over infectious diseases. A commission on preventing smoking was drawing up a new strategy for reducing tobacco dependency. On the topic of education, Mr. Elmiger said that an Italian Swiss university had been created -- the first such Italian-speaking institution in the country.

Discussion

Review of the report at the morning session covered the categories of general aspects of the Covenant as represented in Swiss law; employment and working conditions; and trade-union rights.

Committee members asked, among other things, if special measures were being taken to protect the rights of Gypsies, or Roma; if certain important rights were "downgraded" in the draft Swiss Constitution now being considered from rights to "goals"; if the Covenant had been quoted in the courts; why it had taken Switzerland so long to ratify the Covenant (Swiss ratification followed creation of the Covenant by 26 years); if economic, social and cultural rights were put on a "lower plateau" than other rights, as appeared from Swiss law and the Constitution; if the Swiss Federal Tribunal might be more activist in promoting such rights than other Government bodies; and if responsibility for important rights was passed on to cantons or communes, which might or might not enforce or respect them, and if the federal government had an obligation to step in if such rights were not respected by cantons or communes.

Committee members also queried the delegation about the status of asylum-seekers who had not been recognized as refugees in terms of living conditions and right to work; if the elderly, Gypsies, persons with disabilities, and women could be described as "disadvantaged groups", as NGOs claimed in their report; if any part of the Swiss budget was allocated to implementation of the Covenant; how the various permits provided to foreigners in Switzerland had effects on the economic, social and cultural rights of aliens, including the right to family reunification; if a law stipulating differences between husbands and wives in acquisition of citizenship could have negative repercussions for women and if consideration had been given to amending it; if a pattern in which many women stopped working in mid-life to stay home and take care of children led to problems or loss of employment protection if they returned to work later in life, or if they switched from full- to part-time work; how many hours' work a week amounted to "employment" for statistical purposes; and what was the minimum wage.

Other questions were raised concerning the age through which compulsory education was required; what standards ensured individuals the right to work; what standards related to domestic work; what standards related to the ability of older persons to rejoin the labour market; if concerns over "dumping" on the labour market, resulting in abuse of foreign workers and lowering of domestic employment standards, had resulted in Government standards, and what they were; how equality in employment for men and women worked out in practice, as opposed to in the law -- if women tended to hold fewer high-level and highly educated provisions; if minimum salaries varied greatly from region to region; why unemployment was higher in the French-speaking than in the German-speaking cantons of the country; if problems were experienced by domestic workers in diplomatic and international households, where the workers' permits were based on their employers' consent, leaving them vulnerable to abuse; if reports were accurate in that complaints against such employers, the majority of which were sustained in court, often failed to result in payments to the victims because the employers were protected by diplomatic immunity; why Switzerland had not ratified two basic International Labour Office (ILO) conventions relating to general working standards; what was the situation regarding the civil service's right to strike; and how the increasing burden of funding the social-security programme, based on the aging of the population, was being funded?

The Swiss delegation indicated it would respond to most of the questions at the Committee's afternoon session or on Monday morning, as time was needed to obtain detailed information.

Ambassador ELMIGER said, among other things, that ratification of the Covenant had followed upon a policy of the Government begun in the 1980s to ratify international human-rights instruments; that the country had strong traditions and also a strong commitment to law and detail and to precise analysis before subscribing to any agreement, and perhaps that explained why the country might take a little longer than others would to ratify international treaties; that the Committee's conclusions and recommendations would be disseminated to the Swiss cantons by the federal Government to ensure that they were acted on by the relevant authorities; that cantons had given the federal Government approval to pursue ratification of an ILO convention covering, among other things, minimum ages for access to employment; that another basic ILO convention had been first considered years ago, deferred pending further information from the ILO, and then had been more or less left to sit until recently, when its pertinence was made especially clear by trends in economic globalization; that canton-to-canton situations differed over the right of the civil service to strike, and as well there were differences between the canton and the federal civil service; and that at the federal level a prohibition of strikes still prevailed, but that there seemed to be a Parliamentary consensus towards recognizing the lawful nature of the right to strike.

EVA KORNICKER UHLMANN, Technical Consultant on International Public Law of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland, said, among other things, that six court decisions had been handed down making specific reference to the Covenant, and three more that had not yet been published, making a total of nine.

PATRICIA SCHULZ, Director of the Federal Office of Equality Between Women and Men, of the Federal Department of the Interior, Switzerland, said, among other things, that a Swiss group opposed to domestic violence had begun a campaign of prevention; that programmes were under way to promote equality between men and women in employment and public life; that an instrument was being drawn up to avoid introduction of new forms of discrimination against women; in addition her office was trying to draw up ways for other groups to promote women's rights and sexual equality, especially in employment; some 6 million Swiss francs had been allocated for such programmes, but there also was a threat that a great deal of money for such work would be cut; and that in general the office had a great deal to do and very little money to work with.