Ganz nah und doch anders

On the 50th anniversary of the German VwVfG, this contribution offers an outside view from Switzerland. A close-range comparison with the Swiss VwVG of 1968, within the same legal family, reveals shared dogmatic roots and a common pragmatic design, but also fine-grained differences concerning the role of the constitution and case law, the degree of unification of administrative procedural law, and the weight accorded to procedural fairness vis-à-vis procedural economy. Beneath these observations lie enduring tensions that any procedural codification in a federal state must navigate.