Dear Friends of economic geography,

I want to gather people's opinions and encourage discussion about the
chances to improve real participation in public decision making, democracy
and governance.

Imagine there would be a people's referendum for the citizen's right to
take part in public affairs. This could be a new way to revive democracy,
and the debate about it, in Britain (maybe elsewhere, too). "Taking part"
means, for instance, being able to put a new law before parliament and the
people, to cancel an existing law or to dismiss an M.P. who has represented
her or his constituents badly.

Below is a suggestion for the text of a people's referendum (called
"Proposal"). If enough citizens want the referendum to go ahead, volunteers
will be needed to organise the proceedings and collect the signed ballot
papers. The latter could be done both "on paper" and "on-line".

In brief, the suggestion is "Have a referendum for the right to referenda!"

_________________________________________________________________

PEOPLE'S PROPOSAL TO RENEW DEMOCRACY  (with Rider, below)

We the undersigned propose that a law be passed in parliament which enables
and provides finance for the following forms of democracy at all levels of
government from local to national, these forms of democracy to be initiated
by a fair and reasonable percentage of the population, with decisions being
made by an appropriate majority of voters:

1) Initiation of laws to be voted upon by the legislative body be it
parliament, assembly or council (Citizens' Initiative).

2) Referendum: The people decide, for instance if the legislative has
decided _against_ the citizens' initiatives in 1) or 3).

3) Cancellation or modification of existing laws by citizens' initiative or
referendum.

4) Recall of elected public delegates, representatives and officials at any
time during the usual period of office: The people decide.

A "green paper" outlining the hereto relevant practices of democracy in
other countries and describing different reform options and the reasons for
these shall be rapidly published and made freely available (gratis) via
wide-area computer networks such as Internet.

Signed

.......
.......
.......

___________________________

Rider

By signing the foregoing proposal I mandate my Member of Parliament to help
introduce and support an appropriate Bill in Parliament. In future my vote
will go ONLY to those candidates for parliamentary office who promise to
support the proposal.

Signed

.......
.......
.......

End of proposal.
_________________________________________________________________

SOME BACKGROUND THOUGHTS AND ARGUMENTS

In an almost purely representative democracy such as the United Kingdom
most people can contribute only by voting for an MP once every few years.
Recently there have been moves to mitigate this lack of citizens'
involvement in their own affairs by introducing consultative procedures
such as panels, usually of a dozen or so people from different backgrounds,
asked to consider matters such as an aspect of health care. Also, the
changes involving proportional election systems, and the whole devolution
process appear to be intended to improve the quality of representation of
the will of constituents.

There are other, arguably more effective ways to improve representation in
public affairs, namely those in which citizens represent themselves
directly. Obviously, parliamentary systems, governments and administrations
will not become redundant but, using already established methods, citizens
can be enabled to intervene when they (that is, a reasonable quorum) so
wish. Some of these methods of decision making are known as citizens' (law)
initiative, referendum and recall (IRR -- see note below*). Passive
procedures, such as when the people of a European country are asked by
their government if they want to join or leave the European Community, are
_not_ meant here. I am referring to procedures which are _actively_
introduced by a large number of constituents, and to legislative proposals
on which a majority of them decide.

IRR offer some ways in which tried, effective "checks and balances" can be
introduced into public affairs and decision making, involving public
administration and parliamentary democracy. My proposal to introduce IRR
does not of course suggest that parliament should be abolished or weakened.
I suggest that on the contrary the whole system of governance would be
strengthened. These reforms would give the voters a way to have more say in
their own affairs if and when enough of them want it, without having to
wait till the next election in order "to throw the blighters out" (a clumsy
way to express creative wishes or discontent, often too late for many
problem-issues). With IRR there can be a more refined, developed and
focussed discourse of the people with their representatives and delegates.
Further, it has been suggested that politicians and ministers tend to
respect the wishes of their constituents more, merely because the
possibility of citizen intervention in parliamentary process exists.

Information and Deliberation

It is often asserted that the directer forms of democracy such as IRR do
not allow adequate consideration of the issue at stake. Agreed, a rapid
process conducted like an opinion survey might gather many unreflected
replies. But  that is not what is proposed here. There are very good ways
to build in plenty of information, discussion, and debating time (summed up
as "deliberation") into the processes of citizen-initiated lawmaking. For
instance:

The time from launching initiative to decision is several months at least.

The two or three (depending on method) phases of the citizens' initiative
are accompanied by dissemination of information and public debate. An
agreed percentage of citizen votes must be collected to start the
initiative in order to put a law before parliament. If it is rejected, then
many more votes must be collected in order to start and carry through a
public referendum. Proponents of the initiative must engage the public in
debate, or they will not succeed in mobilising enough support to take the
process further. Similarly, opponents of the initiative will try to
mobilise dissent by disseminating counter arguments, thus creating further
debate.

Information about the issue at stake must be freely available to any
citizen who wants it.

Public debate and information can nowadays be aided by information and
communication technology such as e-mail, WWW, on-line discussion; not
forgetting television, radio and print.

Electronic collection of signatures and electronic voting in referenda, for
instance using the bank teller system or Internet, would speed up matters.
But this not essential.

*Note. The abbreviation IRR refers to Citizens' Law Initiative, Referendum
and Recall of elected representatives.
_________________________________________________________________

Dr. Michael Macpherson, July 1999.

Distribution: The above People's Proposal to Renew Democracy, with or
without the "background thoughts and arguments", may be copied and
circulated electronically or in print.







%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%