Local council or family council?

During the municipal elections held in the canton of Vaud, I was surprised to see that in some villages, several members of the same family had been able to stand for election to the same council. I wondered whether this would be possible in Geneva: are there any rules prohibiting people from the same household from sitting together at municipal or cantonal level?

P, somewhere on the banks of the Versoix

In Geneva, several members of the same family may in principle sit together on a political authority, while the canton of Vaud has certain limits, particularly in executive bodies.

In Switzerland, the organisation of political institutions is largely a matter for the cantons. It is they who lay down the so-called incompatibility rules, i.e. the situations in which a person may not hold a public office. The main aim of these rules is to avoid conflicts of interest or an excessive concentration of power. They often concern the holding of multiple offices - for example between a parliament and an executive - but sometimes also family ties.

In the canton of Geneva, there is no general prohibition in the Constitution or legislation against relatives serving on the same authority. It is therefore legally possible for two spouses, a parent and child or siblings to be elected to a commune's municipal council, administrative council or even the Grand Council. The main limitation arises from the rules on recusal, for example when an issue directly concerns a close relative, the elected member must withdraw from the decision in order to preserve the impartiality of the authority.

The canton of Vaud takes a slightly more cautious approach in certain situations. At commune level, the cantonal law on communes stipulates that close relatives may not sit together on the Municipality, i.e. the commune's executive body. The aim is to prevent local power - often concentrated among just five people - from taking on the air of a family reunion.

A comparable rule also exists at the top of the Vaud government. The cantonal law on the organisation of the Council of State prohibits spouses, partners or close relatives from simultaneously sitting on the Council of State, in order to preserve the independence of this authority.

In practice, Swiss democracy has no shortage of families involved in politics. In Geneva, the law accommodates this fairly well, as long as everyone acts independently. In the canton of Vaud, the legislature has simply deemed it prudent to point out that, in politics as elsewhere, it is sometimes better to avoid mixing family affairs and affairs of state too much!

Read the article on La Tribune de Genève