Chapter 3: Social Goals
Article 41 consists of a list of "social goals" which the confederation and the cantons "shall strive to ensure". They include the availability of social security, health care, housing and public education.
These goals are of a programmatic nature, and are declared not to be directly enforceable. They are also counterbalanced by a reference to individual responsibility in article 6. This means that, contrary to many other Western constitutions, so-called positive or second- and third generation rights are mostly absent from the constitutional text, although they are more widely recognised in legal doctrine and practice. Even so, the inclusion of this provision in the constitution was strongly contested on grounds of economic policy and cantonal autonomy.
Read more about this topic: Title 2 Of The Swiss Federal Constitution
Famous quotes containing the words chapter, social and/or goals:
“When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“... feminism is the attempt of women to grow up, to accept the responsibilities of life, to outgrow those characteristics of childhood—selfishness and unworldliness—that we require our boys to outgrow, but that we permit and by our social system encourage our girls to retain.”
—Henrietta Rodman (1878–?)
“If you really think about it, everything is wonderful in this world, everything except for our thoughts and deeds when we forget about the loftier goals of existence, about our human dignity.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)