The Directorial Executive

The Directorial Executive is a unicum, it exists in only one country in the world, Switzerland. Historically the origins of this Form of Government can be traced back to the French Constitution of the Thermidorian Reaction which established a five-man Directory. This model, which proved to be unsuccessful in France, was then brought to Switzerland by the French Army in 1789 and it is still applied.

Using Elgie’s dispositional properties we can underlie the essential features of this Form of Government.

First of all the Directorial system is characterized by the presence of just one institution, which is both the Head of Government and Head of State, the Federal Council, composed of 7 members. A peculiar feature which comes to surface is therefore the constitutional body not being monocratic as in the Presidential Form of Government but collegial. All the 7 members are formally and legally the Head of Government and Head of State though, for obvious practical reasons, Parliament after having elected the 7 members also proceeds to the election of the President and Vice-president, both in office for one year with a nonrenewable mandate.

The only institutional body that is popularly elected is the Federal Parliament(2nd dispositional property)

Between the Federal Parliament and the Council there is no relationship of confidence as in a Parliamentary system, therefore once the members of the Council are appointed by Parliament they will remain in office for a fixed term of 4 years as for the President of US. There is no possibility of voting no confidence towards the Federal Council ( 3rd dispositional property)

In Switzerland there is a system of shared government where the Council is the expression of the main political parties. This is due to the so-called “magic formula” used to appoint the 7 members according to which two seats are assigned to the three main political