Participation, the principle of good administration

Résumé du document

Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the people's representatives. The representatives supposedly act in the people's interest, but not as their proxy representative i.e., not necessarily always according to wishes, but with enough authority to exercise initiative in the face of changing circumstances. It is often contrasted with direct democracy, where representatives are absent or only proxy representatives. The representative democracy faces several criticisms. First, there may be a conflict of interest, the interests of elected representatives do not necessarily correspond with those of their constituents. This argument can be completed by the lack of transparency and of accountability. Once elected, representatives are free to act as they please. Promises made before the election are often broken, and they frequently act contrary to the wishes of their electorate. But the main flaw of representative democracies is, the lack of representation of the elected people, and the lack of involvement of citizens in policy-making.

Extraits

[...] It proposed to associate civil society with the daily working of European institutions. The first conference on proximity in Salamanca (2001) organized by the Committee of the Regions considers “that a European Union in touch with its citizens must be underpinned by local and regional authorities, who wish to be actively involved in creating the Europe of tomorrow; indeed it is they who are in a position to set up networks for mutual assistance and for pooling experience in policy areas closest to the citizen, guaranteeing the conditions for good governance.” Europe for Citizens (formerly Citizens for Europe) is a European Union programme designed to help bridge the gap between citizens and the European Union. [...]

[...] The initiative of local referendum is in majority entrusted at the same time to local people and local elected representative. But this possibility belongs just to local representatives in some countries (Croatia, Norway, Sweden, au Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain) and just the initiative of local people in some other countries (Czech Republic and Malta). The referendum is decision-making, since authorities are bound by the outcome, in some countries such as Germany, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland or Slovenia, and otherwise, it is just an advisory referendum. [...]

[...] This also resulted in very high participation of citizens in the first public elections. However, as time went on and the Czech society became fully democratic, with usual public institutions functioning on the basis of the citizens' will expressed through periodical elections, the interest of citizens in public life and their will to participate in the decision-making process on public issues decreased to the level common in all advanced democratic countries. Citizens were initially very active in public participation in the late 80s and early 90s, but are now active only if some economic activity or development plan directly endangers their way of life, while environmental NGOs and activists are now mostly in open opposition against the government. [...]

[...] Direct democracy, classically termed “pure democracy”, comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. It also deals with how citizens are "directly" involved with voting for various laws, instead of voting for a representative to decide for them. Switzerland provides the strongest example of modern direct democracy. However this type of democracy, advocated by J-J Rousseau, has some flaws. First of all, this system can only be adopted on a small scale. [...]

[...] The European Commission has initiated infringement procedures against 10 Member States over violations of a key EU law on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects. This directive aims to ensure that the environmental effects of a wide range of infrastructural, industrial, mineral extraction and other projects are properly examined before any works are undertaken. The law also gives important participation rights to citizens. The public must be consulted and its comments taken into account when a decision is taken on whether to authorise a project. [...]