Scottish Office: Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Non-Graphical version

Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Section 2: Methods of Participation and Consultation

Direct Citizen Participation:

2.1: Referendums and Initiatives

Overview

Referendums and initiatives are used to test public opinion on specific issues. These mechanisms tend to be used in three general forms:

1. referendums instigated by a legislature to approve changes in constitutional arrangements

2. referendums initiated by a legislature to confirm changes in public policy.

3. citizen initiated measures to change either the constitution or public policy.

The first type is more common than the second and it is used in countries that use few other methods of direct democracy. The third type, 'initiatives', allow citizen petitions to trigger a referendum. These are widely used only in Switzerland and at a local level in the USA. Despite their fairly limited use interest in referendums, particularly as a means to enhance democratic legitimacy, remains intense. Recent legislation in a number of European countries has facilitated the use of local referendums.

The Scottish Parliament and Referendums

Alan Miller's report on 'Power-Sharing between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive' suggests the use of public petitions and referendums as an important method of fostering power-sharing.⁶ Similarly Order 32 of the Crick-Millar draft standing orders for the Parliament of Scotland states:

Order 32- Petitions, Surveys and Referendums

1. Any Question conforming with Parliament's rules of order signed by a thousand or more electors and addressed to a Member in his or her capacity as a Minister or as the Convenor of a parliamentary committee shall receive as of right a reasoned response from that Minister or Convenor to be published in 'The Record of the Parliament of Scotland".

2 Any petition signed shall also receive like response.

3. If any Member so moves, any petition for redress of grievances signed by ten 'thousand or more electors and addressed to the President must be published in 'The Record of the Parliament 'of Scotland' and debated in Parliament.

4. On a motion tabled by more than half of the current Members of Parliament the President shall instruct the Director of information Services to commission a survey of public opinion in Scotland on the matter set out in the motion, and the results shall be published in 'The Record of the' Parliament of Scotland' and debated on the basis of a report by a parliamentary committee.

5. On a motion tabled by two-thirds of the current Members of Parliament an advisory referendum shall be put to the electorate of Scotland. 'The wording of the question or questions in the referendum shall be drawn up by the Steering Committee and approved by Parliament, the 'results to be published in 'The Record of the Parliament of Scotland' and debated on the basis of a report by a parliamentary committee.

6. The cost of any surveys or referendums under this Order shall be 'attributed to the budget of the Parliament.⁷

The specific arrangements around the world for referendums and citizens' initiatives are enormously varied and the decision to include a right to call a referendum needs to be considered in the light of this experience. The following sections outline the various ways in which these mechanisms can be classified and summarise the experience of other nations.

Classifications of Popular Vote

No standard typology or terminology for the various forms of referendum exists and this complicates the classification of the different techniques in use. The typologies are determined by a large number of variables that include:

who initiates and controls the referendum;
whether the referendum was constitutionally required or by basis of popular petition;
whether it is mandatory or ad hoc;
whether the outcome is binding or advisory;
whether the process is standardised and regulated by law;
if there is a prescribed set of issues (such as constitutional amendments) on which a referendum must be held;
whether the referendum is on a law that has been promulgated or on a bill adopted by Parliament but not yet promulgated (abrogative or rejective).

There is much variation within these and often the same terminology is used to identify different processes in different countries so care needs to be taken and as precise as possible typology distinguished. The typologies used here are drawn from the work of Gallagher & Uleri.⁸ They suggest classifying referendums in terms of initiatives or referendums and add a further classification as to whether these are 'decision-promoting' or 'decision-controlling' measures. By 'decision promoting' they mean all those popular votes, whether referendum or initiative, in which the promoter of the consultation and the author of the act put to the vote are the same. 'Decision-controlling' refers to all votes in which the promoter of the consultation and the author of the decision put to the vote are different. An example of a 'decision-promoting referendum' would be one where the Parliament put a bill that it had agreed on to a popular vote. A 'decision-controlling' initiative, would in contrast, be one where a pre-set number of voters requested that a decision taken by parliament was put to the whole electorate.

Figure 1 provides a tabular summary of the typologies discussed by Gallagher and Uleri.

Figure 1: Classifications of Popular Vote

		term employed
popular votes promoted according to:	general prescribed rules	procedural vote
popular votes promoted according to:	discretion of person or institution	ad hoc referendum
procedural vote is:	pre-established and necessary for a decision to be valid	mandatory referendum
procedural vote is:	at request of an agent whom the constitution or the law so entitles	optional vote
outcome of popular vote is:	to be accepted and implemented by the relevant institution	binding
outcome of popular vote is:	formally indicative as another institution as the final say	advisory

Initiative			optional referendums
all popular votes promoted by petitions signed by a number of voters			all other non-mandatory votes (can be promoted by head of state / government I number of MPs I number of regional assemblies etc.)
decision-promoting initiative	decision-controlling initiative		decision-promoting referendum	decision-controlling referendum
vote requested by a pre-set number of voters who sign a petition asking for the whole electorate to be called to vote on a proposal formulated by the proposers of the consultation themselves	vote requested by a pre-set number of voters asking for a decision to be put to the vote of the electorate		vote requested by an agent other than the electorate that is simultaneously the author of the decision (proposal) on which the electors are called to vote	vote requested by agents other than the electorate that are not Simultaneously the author of the decision (proposal) on which the electors are called to vote
	rejective	abrogative		rejective	abrogative
	object of vote is a decision of government or parliament but not yet enforced	object of vote is a decision of government or parliament already taken and implemented		object of vote is a decision of government or parliament but not yet enforced	object of vote is a decision of government or parliament al- ready taken and implemented