BL cantonal council Basel 30 km/h initiative by the TCS goes before the people
The people of Basel-Landschaft can vote on the TCS popular initiative "30 km/h on main roads - only with the consent of the people". The cantonal council declared the initiative partially valid on Thursday by 58 votes to 24 with 3 abstentions. Previously, several expert opinions had come to different conclusions on the question of legal validity.
29.08.2024, 16:53
29.08.2024, 17:02
SDA
The FDP, Center Party and SVP were all in favour of partial validity. The SP and parts of the Greens/EVP and GLP were against. An amendment by the SP to declare the initiative legally invalid was rejected by 55 votes to 28 with 3 abstentions.
The text of the initiative stipulates that a reduction of the speed limit to 30 km/h on main roads can only be decreed "if all other possible measures have already been implemented and the consent of the voters of the municipality concerned has been obtained". This means that voters in the municipalities should not only be able to decide on the introduction of 30 km/h on municipal roads, but also on cantonal roads. This raised many legal questions.
Safety Director Kathrin Schweizer (SP) criticized before the final vote in the cantonal council that the formulated initiative posed problems in terms of implementation. "It is a popular initiative that cannot deliver what it promises, even in the eyes of the experts." SP parliamentary group spokesperson Simone Abt was of the opinion that the people were being "taken for a ride" with this text: "The people should also know what they are voting on and they don't with the wording of the initiative."
FDP parliamentary group spokesperson Alain Bai, on the other hand, relied on the expert opinion on the legal validity of the initiative and emphasized that it was possible to implement the request within the existing legal framework. His parliamentary group colleague Marc Schinzel added that an initiative could only be declared invalid if there was an obvious legal invalidity, which was not the case here. The principle of "in case of doubt for the people" must apply here.
Different conclusions in the expert opinions
During this debate, reference was made to several legal interpretations. Based on an expert opinion by legal scholar Andreas Stöckli, the Baselbieter government came to the conclusion that the initiative violated federal law, the principle of separation of powers and the canton's sovereignty over cantonal roads.
The Justice and Security Commission of the Landrat (JSK) then commissioned an expert opinion from legal scholar Felix Uhlmann. This came to a different conclusion and classified the initiative as partially valid. Uhlmann only classified a passage in the transitional provision with a retroactive vote on existing 30 km/h zones in the municipalities as "critical", hence the partial validity.
The Basel section of the Touring Club Switzerland (TCS) launched the initiative and submitted it with around 10,000 signatures. In a press release on Thursday, the TCS writes that it is pleased that the voters will ultimately decide "whether more democracy is desired for 30 km/h on main roads in the future".
