A MODERN STATE NEEDS THE CITIZENS'
INITIATIVE & BALLOT
Expert calls for extended democratic rights
PierVincenzo
Uleri who works at the University of Florence, Italy, has
an international reputation as an expert on citizens' direct democracy,
especially the initiative and referendum.
This year he published a clear recommendation to markedly improve the
quality of democracy at the state level in Italy. The proposal deserves
to be given
serious consideration by the peoples of other countries in Europe and
across the world.
"A new reform - the propositional initiative - should
be adopted to
allow the formation of legislative proposals supported by electors. The
number of signatures necessary to place a question on the ballot
should be defined as a percentage of the number of valid votes in the
last general election."
PierVincenzo Uleri
Università degli Studi di Firenze
Initiatives
and Referenda in Italian Democracy: Imperfect Forms and Hard-Won
Institutionalisation
International Conference 2007
Direct Democracy in Latin America
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Background
In a number of countries of Europe citizens have obtained the right to
initiate and veto laws of the state. These include Hungary, Latvia,
Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Switzerland and Slovakia. Italy currently has
a restricted form of citizens' initiative, the abrogative referendum,
with which a law or part of a law may be repealed. The right of
citizens to propose a law and force a ballot on the proposal does not
exist in Italy -- this is the improvement which (above) Dr. PV Uleri
suggests.
