Proposals for the introduction of Elements of Direct Democracy in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Proposals quoted from Our-Say, Unlock Democracy, Power Inquiry, I&Rgb

The “four sets of proposals” may be found in www at 

Comments by

Milan Valach  e-mail Valach @ iol.cz

Ph.D. Direct democracy campaigner and academic, Czech Republic 

Faculty of Education, Department of Civics, Masaryk University Brno

Czech Movement for Direct Democracy   http://www.pdemokracie.ecn.cz/

Editor: Roman numerals below refer to items in the proposal of the Power Inquiry.

18 Feb 2007

Dear Michael Wallace-Macpherson,

I am very glad that you contacted me with these proposals. I am happy that the idea of DD has taken ground in the United Kingdom.

I must acknowledge that I have not enough information about the British political system and system of law. Therefore I will try to  comment on your draft from the Czech (continental) perspective.

For a national initiative the process would be as follows:

I would propose following number of requiring signatures under petition:

- less than 3,000 citizens-  15% registered electors

- less than 200 000 citizens- 450 + 10% registered electors exceeding 3,000

- less than 1 000 000 citizens- 20 150 + 5% registered electors exceeding 200 000

- more than 1 000 000 citizens- 60 150 + 1% registered electors exceeding 1 000 000

I do not understand why there is time limitation for the collection of signatures on the national level in your proposal. I think that it is very hard task to get 400,000 signatures within the period of one year. Therefore I am not certain if this requirement would be necessary.

Concerning the local level, I think that it is not  practical to organize voting only once a year. I suggest that voting on that level should be announced during the period of three months after the collection of signatures. Otherwise some political decision could be approved by the public bodies and the citizens would not have any real opportunity to change it.

The request of the petition should be submitted directly to the people and the law of referendum would be essential. Interference from the side of the Parliament or politicians would have negative impact and destroy the process of expressing the will of the people (paragraph i and ii).

iii.

The outcome of a referendum must be valid irrespective of number of participating electors. It has to be based on the same principles as the parliamentary or local elections of representatives.

v.

From my point of view the period of five years is too long, because our world has been changing very quickly. Therefore I would propose a shorter period of 2 years.

vi.

The citizens have the right to decide on all issues that are subjects of politics. Further, people can recall their representatives. The power of the people is superior to the power of politicians. Public finance belongs to the citizens. The ideas mentioned in the article vi. can be misused easily, since all financial issues have impact on the legislative programmes.

I wish you many successes in your work for DD.

Yours sincerely,

Milan Valach