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- <text id=90TT3281>
- <title>
- Dec. 10, 1990: World Notes:Switzerland
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Dec. 10, 1990 What War Would Be Like
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 67
- World Notes
- SWITZERLAND
- Into the 20th Century
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The half-canton of Appenzell Inner-Rhoden has long and
- proudly refused women the right to vote in local elections.
- Last week it stepped into the 20th century, but not because it
- wanted to. The Swiss Supreme Court in Lausanne declared that
- Appenzell's 4,500 women over age 20 did have the right to vote.
- The justices, responding to a petition by two Appenzell women,
- ruled that a 1981 amendment to the constitution declaring men
- and women equal before the law should take precedence over
- cantonal legislation.
- </p>
- <p> "I'm relieved," said Beat Graf, head of the local
- administration, after hearing the decision. In the town's
- central square, some men grumbled about the Diktat from
- Lausanne but otherwise took the ruling in stride. The women
- seemed pleased if a bit restrained; when night fell, however,
- a few quietly decorated the fountain in the all but deserted
- square with flowers.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-