check or balance
Wallace-Macpherson
Is it not a scandal and a disgrace that in Great Britain and Northern
Ireland we the people NEITHER have the right to propose issues for
debate in parliament, NOR the ability to start a binding referendum? In
Switzerland, the United States of America and to a limited extent in
Italy these procedures are well established and provide a very popular
balance to the power of politicians and bureaucrats.
M. Wallace-Macpherson
http://iniref.tripod.com/
Steve
other countries you mention. Exactly how do 'the people' force a referendum
on a particular issue for example?
Steve
"Wallace-Macpherson" <mw...@SPAMPLEASEsafe-mail.com> wrote in message
news:150520012052497846%mw...@SPAMPLEASEsafe-mail.com...
Paul Collingwood
"Steve" <stephen....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:EwiM6.16757$tU6.2...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...
More to the point, he should justify and quantify the phrase 'a very popular
balance to the power of politicians and bureaucrats'.
P.
Wallace-Macpherson
"Steve" <stephen....@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Wallace-Macpherson replies:
You can find enlightenment and answers to your question by browsing the
website which I quoted. There are links to reliable sources of
background information via the heading CONTACT and INFORMATION ABOUT
I&R on the index page http://iniref.tripod.com/
The countries which I mentioned - Switzerland, USA (about half of the
states) and Italy plus most of the German Laender all *combine*
elements of direct democracy with a parliamentary system. That's what
we are suggesting would be appropriate in Britain. The details can be
discussed.
How does citizens' initiative and referendum I&R work?
Very briefly. On some issue or problem in the public domain a proposal
is made by a person or a group. This proposal may be in the form of a
law, a change to a law, a guidline for public policy, a veto of a law
in parliament, even a change to constitution or a new constitution. In
the town, city, region or country an agreed proportion of constituents
signs the proposal. This might be a hundredth or a tenth of the total,
depending on the size of the political unit and on what has been agreed
upon as a reasonable threshold. If enough signatures are collected, the
proposal goes to parliament, which must debate and decide upon the
proposal. If the parliament refuses to accept the proposal then the
proposing group (and gathered supporters) may take the matter further,
and demand a referendum. To do this, strong evidence of support for the
proposal must be gathered, say a tenth of constituents must sign. A
referendum must then be held. For most matters a simple majority can
decide. For constitutional matters a "supermajority" may be needed.
(For veto of a law in parliament, somewhat different rules may apply -
see the Swiss "facultative" referendum.)
Of course, collecting signatures electronically could make I&R much
easier and cheaper. For phases one and two (citizens' proposal, demand
for referendum) secrecy of voters' identity is not required, so that
potential problem of electronic voting does not arise.
An excellent picture of how Swiss democracy works can be found in Kris
W. Kobach's book The Referendum: Direct Democracy In Switzerland.
England & Vermont: Dartmouth Publishing Co, 1993
An account of direct democracy in Europe and USA is in Ian Budge's The
New Challenge of Direct Democracy by 1996 university of Essex.
Cambridge, Polity Press (with Blackwell)
M. Wallace-Macpherson
Steve Lelievre
news:150520012052497846%mw...@SPAMPLEASEsafe-mail.com...
> Is it not a scandal and a disgrace that in Great Britain and Northern
> Ireland we the people NEITHER have the right to propose issues for
> debate in parliament, NOR the ability to start a binding referendum...
I don't think it's either a scandal or a disgrace. After all, we already can
propose issues for debate in parliament. We just don't have a prescribed
method, that's all. Instead, we write or talk to our MPs, or get the press
on side, and if there are enough of us doing that to demonstrate widespread
interest in the issue then one of the parties will take it up. If we're an
organised group we can make it happen faster and more easily by employing a
few lobbyists to campaign on our behalf. As for starting a referendum, the
same methods apply.
And anyway, isn't the point of representative democracy to have the
representatives deal with these kinds of decisions for us? From what I've
seen, I think our system works just as well as the others mentioned in the
original posting. Ours isn't perfect, but neither are the others.
Steve
----
Want to know who's going to win in your constituency?
Try my UK Tactical Voting Wizard at
http://users.eastlink.ca/~srgl/election2001.htm
Paul Collingwood
possible. Please quote examples of desirable changes which have come about
through this mechanism.
P.
Wallace-Macpherson
Collingwood" <nospa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
The "mechanism" of citizen-initiated referendum is clearly desirable to
many people because, when available, it is often used.
As far as citing desirable changes is concerned then it depends on your
point of view. Politically speaking, there are examples of decisions
which have gone in favour of the right, centre or left. In Switzerland
(among hundreds of decisions at state level and thousands at
canton/regional level) there was a referendum decision against joining
the United Nations, although most political parties and public
organisations were in favour. (I.a. there were fears about preserving
the treasured military neutrality.) On the other hand, the law
concerning addictive drugs was quite recently liberalised by citizens'
referendum. And expansion of nuclear powered electricity has until now
been held back by a popular vote.
In general, if they have the right to decide on issues, people become
more civically self-confident, better informed, arguably more socially
responsible because their stake in the "commons" grows.
M. Wallace-Macpherson
Citizens' Initiative I&R
http://iniref.tripod.com
Vote for more democracy at
http://www.sztaki.hu/servlets/voting/call
Wallace-Macpherson
Collingwood" <nospa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Are you offering me a research contract to allow me to "justify and
quantify" in the necessary depth? ;-)
Sincerely,
Michael Macpherson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Michael Macpherson,
PSAMRA/Integral Studies,
Berlin FRG
tel.: +49 30 262 3768
e-mail: m...@berlin.snafu.de
INTEGRAL STUDIES
http://home.snafu.de/mjm/index.html
Join: Democr@cy Forum
http://www.democracyforum.net/democracy/purpose.html
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http://home.snafu.de/mjm/psamra.html
Wallace-Macpherson
<sr...@hfx.eastlink.ca> wrote:
> > "Wallace-Macpherson" <mw...@SPAMPLEASEsafe-mail.com> wrote in message
> news:150520012052497846%mw...@SPAMPLEASEsafe-mail.com...
>
> > Is it not a scandal and a disgrace that in Great Britain and Northern
> > Ireland we the people NEITHER have the right to propose issues for
> > debate in parliament, NOR the ability to start a binding referendum...
>
>
> I don't think it's either a scandal or a disgrace. After all, we already can
> propose issues for debate in parliament. We just don't have a prescribed
> method, that's all. Instead, we write or talk to our MPs, or get the press
> on side, and if there are enough of us doing that to demonstrate widespread
> interest in the issue then one of the parties will take it up. If we're an
> organised group we can make it happen faster and more easily by employing a
> few lobbyists to campaign on our behalf. As for starting a referendum, the
> same methods apply.
I have tried approaching my constituency MP with no success at all. If
your problem requires a change in her/his party's policy then your
chances of persuading your MP to introduce a bill or even a question in
the house are zero. And some problems require a change of policy by all
the big parties so your chances there are nill too, even if you "are"
an organisation.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If these are available,
people will exploit procedures which allow an agreed, large number of
citizens to put issues on the public agenda and if necessary bring them
to a vote (always after a lot of public debate and "deliberation").
Can you think of any recent bills or laws which became law, then had to
be withdrawn because they were so bad? These could have been blocked
while still in the pipeline, by "facultative" referenda.
> And anyway, isn't the point of representative democracy to have the
> representatives deal with these kinds of decisions for us? From what I've
> seen, I think our system works just as well as the others mentioned in the
> original posting. Ours isn't perfect, but neither are the others.
With the Citizens' Initiative I&R prposals there is no intention to
abolish the representative system of parliamentary democracy. But
everyone knows that this representaion is by no means perfect. Election
promises are often not kept, corruption among politicians and parties
is not unknown. Sometimes important issues just do not get a hearing.
Systems which combine elements of direct democracy with representative
rule are clearly an improvement on those where the people are only
allowed to "decide" by voting for a party or politician once every five
years. If you study them, you will discover the power of this argument.