Register › Concepts › Participatory democracy
Participatory democracy
The name the Republic gives its own form, meaning that participation is not reducible to voting every five years.
The claim in Article 3
Sovereignty is exercised directly through communal assembly, initiative and referendum, through bodies drawn by lot, through the workplace, user and neighbourhood assemblies, and through elected representatives and mandated delegates. Participation reaches those who work in an undertaking, use a service, inhabit a territory or have an ecological burden.
Where it operates
Localities decide in person wherever population allows, and by elected council where it does not, with initiative, referendum and recall available in both. Fifty thousand residents can introduce a bill and force a referendum if it is rejected. A hundred thousand can suspend a law and put it to a vote. Producers and users can introduce bills and compel written answers from executive committees.
No turnout thresholds
Nowhere does the validity of a vote depend on how many people took part. Turnout quorums reward organised abstention, because staying home counts as a no. The old constitution used them and now they are gone.
A ratchet, not a slogan
Participation attained is retained. A measure narrowing the participation the Constitution guarantees is presumed unconstitutional, and the authority adopting it must prove necessity.