Indirect democracy means no power to all

The Second Chamber of the EU General Court made clear that the Citizens’ initiative cannot impose anything to the legislative-elected bodies

by Emanuele Bonini

Direct democracy is not for ever, and is not for everything. Especially in context of indirect democracy. The latter is based on representative bodies such as Parliaments, meaning that these bodies keep their supremacy, their own right to decide. Do the people decide? Yes and not. They decide who will decide on their behalf. With such rules of the game, people's Institutions elected by people «are the law» and always retain discretionary power as regards the action to be taken. So ruled today the Second Chamber of the General Court of the European Union, making clear that European citizens’ initiative (ECI) cannot replace the law-making power of the European Commission.

ECI is a EU mechanism aimed at increasing direct democracy by allowing active participation of EU citizens. Citizens’ initiative is nothing but the possibility of submitting to the European Commission any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required. In order to have a proposal notified, at least one million eligible signatories coming from at least one quarter of all Member States are required.


The key point is that the right for citizens to express their wishes is not a duty for those to who these whishes are submitted. Now, in the specific case it is already clear that direct democracy is a possibility rather than an obligation. According to the regulation, «where the Commission receives a citizens’ initiative it shall, within three months, set out in a communication its legal and political conclusions on the citizens’ initiative, the action it intends to take, if any, and its reasons for taking or not taking that action». If any.

Did the Second Chamber of the EU General Court ruled the nature of representative democracy or have the judges ruled out the possibily for citizens to be listened to? The correct answer is A. It has been recalled that Western countries have in place representative democracy (or indirect democracy), where elected officials represent a group of people and receive the power (and the responsibility) of take decisions. Coherently with this system people are given only one more chance to actively participate. A chance, no more than that.