Commentaries: Art. 153

In addition to the rights to information under Article 150, the supervisory committees have the right to deal directly with any authorities, offices and other agencies entrusted with the tasks of the Confederation and to obtain the information and documents from them that they require in application of Article 156. They may assign the responsibility for individual investigations to their secretariat.
They may obtain information and documents from persons and offices outside the Federal Administration, provided this is necessary for the fulfilment of their supervisory control. Persons outside the Federal Administration who were previously in the service of the Confederation remain subject to Article 156. The right to refuse to testify under Article 42 of the Federal Act of 4 December 1947¹on Federal Civil Procedure applies by analogy.
They may summon persons required to provide information by means of a ruling issued by the committee president in analogous application of the Article 49, 50 and 201–209 the Criminal Procedure Code²and, in the event that such persons fail to appear without excuse, have them brought before the committees by federal or cantonal police officers.
An objection may be filed against rulings on summonses or enforced appearances within ten days with the president of the council to which the committee president making the decision belongs. The objection has no suspensive effect. If the council president holds that the ruling is unlawful or unreasonable, he or she may award the person making the objection compensation in satisfaction. The decision on the objection is final.
Before the supervisory committees question a member of the Federal Council, they shall inform him or her of the subject matter of the questions. They shall inform the Federal Council prior to questioning persons who are or have been subordinated to it. They shall consult with the Federal Council at its request before persons are required to provide information or hand over documents.
Their decisions on exercising their rights to information are final. They have no right to inspect:
1. the minutes of Federal Council meetings;
2. documents that are classified as secret in the interests of state security or the intelligence services or the disclosure of which to unauthorised persons may be seriously detrimental to national interests.
They shall take appropriate precautions to preserve secrecy in accordance with Article 150 paragraph 3. For this purpose, as well as in cases where their rights to information are insufficient for the proper exercise of supervisory control, they may mandate their delegations to investigate any specific issue. They shall issue directives on the preservation of secrecy in their area of responsibility, which shall in particular restrict access to accompanying reports.

SR 273 ↩
SR 312.0 ↩

Art. 153

Footnotes

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