Most constitutions are written on the assumption that the country they govern is meant to remain intact. The Principality of Liechtenstein contains a rather extraordinary exception.
Article 4 of the Constitution of this tiny Alpine principality provides that individual municipalities are entitled to secede from the state. In other words, one of Liechtenstein’s eleven municipalities can begin a process that could ultimately result in it no longer being part of Liechtenstein. For a country covering little more than 160 square kilometres, that is an intriguing constitutional choice.
The provision was introduced as part of the constitutional reforms approved by referendum in 2003. Under the present system, a majority of the eligible Liechtenstein citizens living in a municipality can vote to initiate a secession procedure. What follows is more complicated. Departure must then be regulated either by legislation or by an international treaty. If a treaty is negotiated, the inhabitants of the municipality must vote again once negotiations have been completed.
So this is not quite a unilateral right to declare independence overnight. The Liechtenstein Government itself explained during the constitutional debate that the provision creates a relative, rather than absolute, right of secession: a municipality can initiate the process, but completing it still requires the involvement of the country’s constitutional institutions.
That qualification arguably makes the provision even more interesting. States usually approach territorial integrity as something to be protected from uncertainty. Liechtenstein has instead written into its fundamental law the possibility that membership of the state need not be entirely irreversible.
It fits an unusual constitutional system. Liechtenstein is a hereditary constitutional monarchy but its Constitution states that state power is embodied jointly in the Prince and the people. Municipalities, meanwhile, enjoy significant local autonomy.
Behind what may initially sound like a constitutional curiosity therefore lies a serious question: does a political community become weaker when its members are given a legal route to leave or can the possibility of departure actually make continued membership more voluntary and therefore more meaningful?
Liechtenstein does not provide a simple answer but there is something striking about one of Europe’s smallest states being willing to put the question into its Constitution at all.
In an international system built largely around fixed borders and territorial continuity, Liechtenstein quietly leaves one door open and sometimes the most interesting constitutional ideas are found in the countries we rarely think to look at.
