Popular Initiatives in Poland: Citizens Empowerment or Keeping Up Appearances?

Transcription

1 12 Popular Initiatives in Poland: Citizens Empowerment or Keeping Up Appearances? Anna Rytel-Warzocha The historical and political background of citizens initiative institutions The political transformation in Central and Eastern Europe resulting in the collapse of communist regimes at the end of the 1980s began the process of democratization in Poland. It also launched the process of strengthening the direct role of citizens in exercising their sovereign power. The lack of confidence in the purely representative democracy and the overall deficit of democracy in the country, both of which were a result of a long period of an authoritarian regime, were the reasons for emphasizing the need to provide citizens with direct opportunities to exercise the power. The principle of direct democracy was recognized in the new Polish Constitution of 1997, which expressly mentions its two forms referendum and popular initiative. While examples of referendums can be found in Polish political history, the 1997 constitution is the first one that allows citizens to initiate a legislative process. The idea of popular initiative was raised for the first time in the interwar period. After World War I, direct democratic rights had been included in three drafts of the new constitution, although the specific shape of this institution differed in all these proposals. The widest provisions of popular initiative were put forward in the Socialists proposal, which provided for the citizens the right to propose legal acts, to veto statutes and other parliamentary acts as well as to dissolve parliament before the end of its term. However, the first attempts to introduce direct democracy to the Polish Constitution of 1921 were unsuccessful. In 1930, a constitutional amendment granting the right of legislative 212 M. Setälä et al. (eds.), Citizens Initiatives in Europe Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2012

2 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 213 initiative to a group of at least 100,000 Polish citizens was drafted, but the political situation in the 1930s was still unfavourable for direct democracy (Litawski, 1932, p. 102). The following trend of strengthening the constitutional position of the president resulted in a total disregard of direct democracy in the next Polish Constitution of Polish citizens were also deprived of direct democratic rights in the period of the communist regime, A wind of change came in In the face of the crumbling Eastern Bloc an amendment introducing the national referendum concerning important issues was adopted to the 1952 constitution. This constitutional regulation was followed by enactment of the appropriate statute and the calling of a referendum in the same year. 1 After the landmark year 1989 the long process of political transformation started, which aimed first at the regaining of sovereignty and then at building a democratic state based on the rule of law. The citizens initiative right occurred for the first time in Polish law in 1994 and was strictly related to the process of drafting a new constitution. A group of at least 500,000 Polish citizens with full voting rights became entitled to introduce a draft of the constitution. This was a temporary solution justified by the political circumstances of the time because citizens could use the initiative right only for three months after the law came into force. In fact, one citizens constitutional draft was successfully introduced to the national assembly which was a state body responsible for preparing and adopting the final text of a new constitution. During the transition period, the legal regulation of the popular initiative concerning other legal acts was abandoned with the intention to include the appropriate provisions in the new Basic Law. The idea of introducing a citizens legislative initiative to the Polish constitutional system was supported by almost all political parties and it was included in six out of seven constitutional drafts submitted. 2 It is interesting that the only constitutional draft which did not provide that right was the one proposed by citizens themselves. Although the proposals were very different regarding such issues as the number of citizens signatures required in order to perform the initiative successfully (from 50,000 to 200,000) or the scope of limitations concerning its subject, all of them provided only an indirect initiative, that is, an agenda initiative, in which the final decision on the act was granted to the parliament. 3 The procedures for making citizens initiatives The current Polish Constitution was enacted on 2 April 1997 and it came into force on 16 October Article 2 states that the Republic

3 214 Practices of Agenda Initiatives of Poland shall be a democratic state ruled by law and implementing the principles of social justice. This general idea of democracy has been realized by a set of constitutional principles. In Article 4, the constitution introduces the principle of the sovereignty of the people, 4 who can exercise their supreme power in two ways directly or through their representatives. Despite the fact that the direct form is mentioned first, there is no doubt that, like in all other democratic countries, the main form of exercising power by people is representative democracy while direct democracy is only the complementary one. The constitution provides two forms of citizens participation in exercising the supreme power: the referendum, both at the national and local level, and the popular initiative, which has been referred to in Article 118. Due to paragraph 2 of that article, the right to introduce legislation shall also belong to a group of at least 100,000 citizens having the right to vote in elections to the Sejm. All procedural matters concerning the use of this right have been defined in the statute. The constitutional provisions concerning popular initiative in Poland do not contain any restrictions regarding the subject of the initiative. Nevertheless, taking into account other constitutional provisions, there are some such limitations. Firstly, citizens cannot propose a constitutional amendment. All actors who can initiate such a process the president of the republic, one-fifth of the statutory number of deputies and the senate are listed in Article 235 of the constitution. So neither citizens nor the government can make a constitutional initiative. Secondly, those issues where the right of legislative initiative is assigned to exclusive competence of particular state bodies cannot be subject to popular initiative. For example, according to Article 221, the right of legislative initiative remains solely with the council of ministers when it comes to statutes on the state budget, an interim budget, amendments to the budget, the statute on the contracting of public debt and the statute on state guarantees. This means that popular initiative is inadmissible. Another limitation results from Article 112 of the constitution, which states the principle of the parliament s autonomy according to which the organization and the conduct of the work of the Sejm as well as the manner of performance of the obligations related to the Sejm by other state organs shall be specified in the rules of procedure adopted by the Sejm. Therefore, all these issues cannot be subject to statutory regulation initiated by citizens or any other state body. Bearing in mind the nature of the constitution as an act of the highest legal force, we must note that no additional restrictions concerning the potential subject of the citizens initiative may be imposed by the statute (Szmyt,

4 Anna Rytel-Warzocha , pp ). There are also no legal obstacles to introduce several drafts on the same issue simultaneously by citizens or by citizens and another entitled body, even if the draft has already been debated in the parliament. In order to provide a full view over the agenda initiative in Poland, it must be mentioned that, in addition to the legislative initiative, Polish citizens have also the right to initiate a referendum. Although this right is not directly mentioned in the constitution, it is covered in the Act on nationwide referendum of Unfortunately, this regulation is very general and in many respects not sufficiently clear. According to Article 63 of the referendum law, a group of at least 500,000 citizens entitled to vote can introduce to the parliament a motion to call a referendum. The referendum initiated by the people cannot deal with financial issues (particularly taxes and other public charges), national defence or amnesty. However, the introduction of such limitations seems unnecessary because the citizens referendum proposal is never binding for the parliament. Like in the case of legislative initiative, the citizens referendum initiative is a type of an agenda initiative (a referendum motion) as it is always the parliament, or more precisely its lower chamber, the Sejm, which makes the final decision on whether to call a referendum or not. It is noticeable that citizens have not often used the opportunity to request a nationwide referendum. Since 1989 only three proposals to call a referendum have been introduced to the Sejm. The proposals aimed to object to the selling of land within Polish territory to foreigners (2002), and in two cases to limit the privatization of public properties such as forests (2000). All of them were rejected by the parliament. The laconic constitutional provisions concerning the popular initiative have been clarified and made more concrete in the Act on the manner of implementing the citizens legislative initiative which was enacted on 24 June The legislative process related to the statute was quite long as there were four very different drafts submitted by members of the parliament from different political parties and the council of ministers. The main differences between the drafts concerned the issues of establishing a committee of citizens initiative, its representation, the method of collecting signatures and their verification, the introduction of judicial and constitutional review of popular initiatives as well as the regulation concerning the funding of initiatives (Uziębło, 2006, pp ). The final act on popular initiative is not very extensive: it covers 21 articles. Up to now it has not been changed, although a proposal for an amendment was submitted by the senate in The main aim of the proposed amendment was to expand the exemption

5 216 Practices of Agenda Initiatives of citizens drafts from the rule of discontinuation of the legislative process applied in the end of the parliament s term of office, and to impose time limits on parliamentary procedures on citizens proposals. The legislative process on this proposal has not been concluded yet. Although the constitution does not make any distinctions between citizens legislative initiatives and legislative initiatives by other state bodies (the president of the republic, the senate, the council of ministers and deputies), there are some provisions in the statute which in a way favour citizens initiatives. The first exception is the rule that the parliament of the following term of office should continue the unfinished legislative processes on citizens initiatives, that is, the general rule of discontinuation of the parliamentary work has been in this case explicitly excluded. In practice, the preventive role of that provision is limited because the rule concerns only one parliamentary term following the term during which the proposal was first introduced. This has led to the prolonging of parliamentary procedures on citizens drafts, and in many cases the rule of discontinuity has been applied anyway. The other exceptional rule is that the first reading of citizens drafts should take place no later than three months after the submission to the Marshal of the Sejm. Again, this provision does not guarantee effective procedures as empirical analysis shows that legislative processes have been unduly prolonged in the later stages, particularly during the work of relevant parliamentary committees examining the drafts. There is also a special judicial protection of citizens initiatives. The marshal s decision to reject the citizens proposal despite the fact that all formal requirements are fulfilled can be challenged before the Supreme Court. 5 On the other hand, the citizens drafts must meet the same formal requirements as other legislative drafts. First of all, the citizens legislative initiative in Poland takes the form of a formulated initiative as citizens must submit a written, complete legislative draft, which must be accompanied by a detailed explanatory statement. According to law, it should explain the need for and the purpose of the proposed legislation, present the current situation within the area to be regulated, indicate differences between the present and the proposed legal situation, present an evaluation of the social, economic, financial and legal effects of the proposed regulation, identify sources of financing the expenses in the event that the bill imposes burden on the state budget or local government budgets, outline the basic concepts of executive regulations necessary to implement the proposed legislation and, finally, contain a statement that the subject matter of the proposed regulation is not governed by the legislation of European Union (EU) law and does

6 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 217 not violate it (Article 34, The Standing Order of the Sejm, 1992). It should be mentioned that Polish law does not provide citizens with the opportunity to obtain support from specialized state bodies (for example, parliamentary committees or governmental agencies) when drafting the statute, which is the case for example in Lithuania. The problem with the correct preparation of the draft and explanatory note faced by citizens can be illustrated by the fact that in the period of , only 11 such documents out of 79 presented to the Marshal of the Sejm fulfilled all formal requirements from the very beginning. As has already been pointed out, citizens drafts are not subject to a prior control by the Constitutional Tribunal. This causes many problems, but the introduction of such a procedure would need an amendment to the constitutional regulation of the competences of the tribunal. The lack of constitutional review leads to situations where citizens proposals are unconstitutional from the very beginning. This has been the case in one of the latest citizens proposals which concerned the introduction a gender quota to electoral law. If there are any doubts concerning the consistency of the proposed legislation with the constitution, EU law, ratified international treaties or basic principles of legislative technique, the marshal may, after seeking the opinion of the Presidium of the Sejm, refer such bills to the Legislative Committee of Sejm for its opinion. The committee may, by a 3/5 majority vote in the presence of at least half of its members, find the bill inadmissible. In such a case, the marshal may not initiate the legislative proceedings; in other words, citizens efforts related to the legislative initiative have been in vain. Activities related to the preparation of the draft, its dissemination, promotional campaign, as well as the collection of signatures supporting the initiative are performed by a committee of a legislative initiative. Such a committee may be set up by a group of at least 15 Polish citizens with full voting rights who give a written declaration of joining the committee and indicate their personal data. The first 15 people creating the committee should also designate a representative who will act for and on behalf of the committee. The next step is to collect signatures of 1000 citizens supporting the initiative. This requirement has been adopted in order to prevent too many initiatives which would not enjoy popular support but which could slow down or block the parliament s work. After the signatures have been collected, the representative of the committee shall notify the Marshal of the Sejm about the formation of the committee, who should make a preliminary examination of the legislative draft and the explanatory note and issue an order on

7 218 Practices of Agenda Initiatives accepting the notification within 14 days of its receipt. At that point the committee acquires legal personality and the draft bill can no longer be changed. In the case of formal deficiencies, the marshal should no later than within 14 days of receipt of the notification call the representative for their removal within the following 14 days. Failing to remove the deficiencies causes a refusal to accept the notice. The marshal s decision to refuse to accept a notice may be appealed to the Supreme Court within 14 days of its receipt by the representative. The Supreme Court shall consider the complaint within 30 days and its decision is final as it cannot be challenged. The marshal s positive decision opens a promotional campaign, which is aimed to present and explain the contents of the proposal; also the three-month period for collecting the remaining signatures starts running (the 1000 signatures already gathered are included in the total number of 100,000 required). The promotional campaign for the bill and the collection of signatures follow principles similar to those set out for election campaigns. The relevant provisions of the electoral law are analogically applied. The collection of signatures must be carried out in a place, time and manner which excludes any threat, deceit or pressure brought to obtain such signatures. Signatures must not be collected within military units and other units subordinated to the Minister of National Defence, civil defence units or quartered police units subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs. It is also forbidden to grant a salary for collecting or signing a list of citizens supporting the initiative. The full text of the proposed law must be available in places where signatures are collected. The model of the list where signatures are collected is determined in the Prime Minister s regulation after the consultations with the National Electoral Commission. It is not possible to withdraw support once given to the legislative draft. The legislative draft together with a list of at least 100,000 signatures of citizens supporting the initiative should be submitted to the Marshal of the Sejm by the initiative committee s representative no later than three months from the date of the marshal s order accepting the notification on the set up of the committee. When there is no doubt concerning the number or the validity of the signatures, the marshal shall order the printing of the draft and its distribution to the members of parliament before it is referred for the first reading in the Sejm. When there is reasonable doubt concerning the validity or the number of signatures, the marshal should ask the National Electoral Commission to check them, which should be done within 21 days. If the number of the valid signatures submitted in support of the initiative appears to be less

8 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 219 than required by law, the marshal refuses to introduce the draft to the parliament. In such a case, the committee s representative can appeal to the Supreme Court. From the moment of the successful introduction of a citizens initiative, it is treated, with just a few exceptions, in the same way as the proposals introduced by any other entitled bodies. Like all other bills they should be considered in three readings. However, the first reading of the citizens draft should be carried out at a plenary session of the Sejm within three months of its submission, so the possibility to conduct the first reading at the meeting of the relevant committee is excluded. What s more, the citizens drafts cannot bear the urgency clause, which would accelerate the legislative procedure at all stages, because that way of proceeding is expressly reserved for governmental drafts. Following the provisions of the standing orders of both chambers, committee s representatives can participate in the parliamentary work on citizens proposals. For example, they are entitled to present an oral explanation of the bill during the first reading and answer the questions raised by the deputies, as well as take part in the parliamentary committees work on the bill. However, due to the exceptional status of the initiator, the citizens committee faces difficulties in exercising some competences. First of all, the law does not regulate details concerning the withdrawal of the draft or the introduction of amendments to it. Both these rights are expressly granted to initiators and can be used until the end of the second reading of the draft, but in the case of popular initiative it is not clear what the procedure is like, for example whether such actions should be supported by a certain number of citizens. Therefore, currently these rights cannot be exercised in relation to citizens legislative initiatives. All expenses related to citizens initiatives, including the promotional campaign and the collection of signatures, must be covered by the initiative committee, which can organize public fund-raising for that purpose. In order to facilitate this, the organization of public fund-raising does not require a prior permission in this case. Nevertheless, the statute provides for restrictions concerning the origins of the funds collected. The financial resources transferred to the initiative committee can neither come from the state budget, local self-government budgets, state agencies, municipal associations and other municipal corporations, nor from enterprises where the state treasury or local government units are participants. Further, the prohibition applies also to funds from individuals without Polish citizenship, no matter whether they are residing in Poland or not, legal persons not established in Poland or involving

9 220 Practices of Agenda Initiatives foreign entities, foreign diplomatic representations and other respective bodies. These provisions apply also to the non-monetary values. The financing of popular initiatives must be transparent and open to public inspection. In order to ensure the application of these rules, the representative of the committee is obliged to submit a statement on the sources of funds raised for the legislative initiative to the minister competent for the public finance within three months from submitting the draft to the Marshal of the Sejm. The financial statement is also published in a nationwide newspaper. If funds raised outweigh the costs, the surplus must be passed to a charity, which shall be mentioned in the statement. Depending on circumstances, the initiative committee shall terminate three months after completing the legislative procedure, the marshal s refusal to give effect to the draft or the Supreme Court s negative decision. The committee is also terminated by the operation of law in case it fails to collect the required number of signatures supporting the initiative within the prescribed period of three months. The experience of initiatives: Topics, makers and the consequences of initiatives The practice of popular initiatives shows that the instrument has been regarded as an important and necessary tool facilitating citizens participation in public life. Nevertheless, despite the great interest in using that tool, citizens initiatives still meet many obstacles difficult to overcome. It can be well illustrated by the data from the period of Out of 79 initiative committees established by citizens, only in 11 cases were the notifications submitted to the Marshal of the Sejm formulated correctly. In all other cases there were formal deficiencies, therefore the marshal called for their removal. What is interesting is that 18 committees did not even try to do this. As the remaining 50 committees completed their motions, there were finally 61 committees which launched promotional campaigns and started to collect the signatures. 27 committees were able to collect the required number of 100,000 signatures in the prescribed period of three months, which constitute less than a half of the total number. What is more, the drafts were rejected in three cases because of reasonable doubts as to the validity of the signatures collected (see Table 12.1). To sum up, within ten years only 24 legislative drafts have been successfully introduced by citizens. However, in seven cases only legislative procedures initiated by people have resulted in adopting statutes. 6

10 221 Table 12.1 Initiatives and treatment in parliament in Poland ( ) Year Initiatives launched Proposal formally correct or successfully reformulated Signatures submitted Handed to the parliament Rejected in the 1st reading Procedure finished due to delaying Enacted by the parliament Initiatives still in the committees Dec Total initiatives were rejected because the proposal was formally incorrect and the required changes were not made. In 3 cases the signatures were submitted but they were declared as non-valid. End of the following parliamentary terms of office.

11 222 Practices of Agenda Initiatives Table 12.2 Types of issues proposed by popular initiatives in Poland ( ) Issue % (N) Economic issues 25.31(20) Political system, electoral law 11.39(9) Education 5.06(4) Health care 5.06(4) Criminal law 5.06(4) Social issues, pensions 30.37(24) Public finance (taxes) 10.12(8) Other: media, administrative 7.59(6) code, national holiday, day off In three cases the citizens proposals were rejected in the first reading and in the other cases the parliamentary procedure has not been completed. During the first three years since the regulation on the manner of exercising the initiative by citizens came into force (the third term of office of the Sejm), five proposals were successfully introduced to the Sejm by citizens. Two of these initiatives were launched by a trade union or a professional association. The committee created by the Trade Union of Polish Teachers (ZNP) prepared a draft law which aimed at changing rules for determining salaries for teachers by introducing a centralized wage system. The initiative was successful and the citizens proposal was adopted by the parliament only four months after the first reading of the bill (for the issue of initiatives, see Table 12.2). The second one was the proposal of the Association of Former Soldiers and Officers which aimed at amending the law on occupational pensions for retired soldiers and their families and the law on police pensions for retired officers, the Office of State Protection, Border Guard, State Fire Service and Prison Service and their families, with the intention of granting some privileges to these groups. This proposal did not meet with such a success. The parliamentary proceedings in that case were not completed during the third and the fourth term of office of the Sejm, so the rule of discontinuity of parliamentary procedures was applied. The three other initiatives were supported by political parties. Legislative drafts concerning the preservation of the national character of the country s strategic natural resources, which was adopted almost two years after its introduction to the Sejm, and the ban of promotion of

12 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 223 violence in the media were promoted by the politicians of right-wing parliamentary parties. The increasing support they gained in society resulted in the creation of a new party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS), led by Lech Kaczynski, in the following year. In the third case, the initiative promoting the law establishing the National Foundation of Education was supported by the parliamentary party Unia Wolności (UW) which was evidently losing political support among citizens as they lost the following election in The draft was adopted by the Sejm, but it was rejected by the senate which finished the legislative proceeding. During the Sejm s fourth term of office ( ) the parliament continued the procedures with the 2 drafts previously submitted 7 and 11 new proposals were introduced by people. Two initiatives were launched by non-parliamentary political parties one to amend the Law on Environmental Protection and the Law on Waste with the aim of lifting the ban on the import of second-hand clothing from abroad, and the second one to amend the Act on employment and counteracting unemployment in order to introduce the pre-retirement allowances and to increase retirement benefits. In both cases, the parliament adopted proposed legislation. Two other successfully accomplished initiatives were introduced by a trade union to establish new rules concerning the retirement of miners and by the union of pharmacists to improve the requirements for trade of medicines. An initiative was also launched by the Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives to provide some social rights to these occupational groups, but the parliamentary work on this proposal was interrupted by the end of the Sejm s following term of office in The same has happened to a vast majority of other initiatives. Two of such initiatives had a very local character and were supported by local self-government authorities one introduced by inhabitants of the north-west part of Poland to establish a new Mid-Pomeranian province and one concerning the restructuring and the privatization of the Thermal Power Plants in Łodź. Another example is an initiative launched by a group of businessmen who proposed to amend provisions of the act on VAT in order to lower rates on clothes for children up to 150 cm in height. Three other citizens initiatives were supported by parliamentary opposition parties the citizens bill on the financing of health care services was promoted by Platforma Obywatelska, and the citizens bill introducing a profound reform of the Penal Code and the bill on the establishment of the Alimony Fund were supported by PiS. Only the last mentioned proposal was adopted by the Sejm of the next term of office.

13 224 Practices of Agenda Initiatives The legislative procedures with seven drafts were continued by the parliament of the fifth term of office ( ), but only one act on Alimony Fund was adopted. In all other cases the legislative procedures were not accomplished. In this period, only one new citizens draft was submitted the citizens bill to amend the Law on Pensions from the Social Insurance Fund and certain other laws concerning the right to early retirement. Because of the end of the Sejm s term of office, which was shortened by its own decision, the parliamentary procedure concerning that draft was interrupted. In the current parliamentary term that started in 2007, apart from continuing the legislative procedure concerning the law on pensions, 8 by the end of 2010 the Sejm had begun the proceedings of 13 new citizens drafts. By spring 2011, only two of them had become law the citizens proposal to amend the Education Act and the Act on the incomes of local government units, which concerns the age of compulsory education for children and the transfer of the obligation to cover the costs of public pre-schools to the state, and the citizens proposal to amend the electoral law by introducing a quota system. The deputies attitudes to popular initiatives were quite positive during the first years of the functioning of the initiative instrument, and citizens drafts were treated with a special attention. However, this trend seems to have changed in recent years. Since 2008, as many as three citizens drafts have been rejected at the first reading. These were the citizens bill to introduce a state holiday on the Epiphany, the citizens bill to introduce a day off on the Epiphany and the citizens bill to amend the Penal Code in order to criminalize in vitro fertilization, experiments on human embryos created in such manner and trade in these embryos. All these initiatives were launched by citizens representing the right side of the political stage. The legislative procedures concerning other proposals are still in progress. These include the proposal concerning the regulation of national parks, repatriation of Poles from the territories of the former Soviet Union, the age of entitlement to pre-school education, the activities of housing cooperatives, the right to minimal retirement benefits, taxes and free and concessionary travel on public transport. To draw some conclusions about the initiators of popular initiatives in Poland, it should be noted that many committees have represented the interests of particular professional groups such as trade unions or associations of employers. Many initiatives have also been undertaken by citizens associated with social organizations and political parties. The tool of popular initiative has also been used by non-parliamentary and

14 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 225 parliamentary parties which could start the legislative process through their parliamentary representatives. Legislative initiatives formally submitted by people are, however, more noticeable in the public media, so they may be used as a part of promotion and election campaigns. This was the case in 2002 when the committee represented by Lech Kaczyński proposed amendments to the Penal Code, reflecting the opinions of the majority of Polish society, before the local elections where Kaczyński ran for the position of the president of Warsaw. What is more, the Act on the manner of exercising the citizens legislative initiative does not require a territorial distribution of signatures, so citizens promoting an initiative do not have to represent different parts of the country. The lack of this kind of a restriction means that some of the initiatives have been aimed to satisfy particular interests of the communities living in a specific region of the country, like establishing additional administrative unit or the issue concerning a thermal power plant. In addition, most citizens initiatives have aimed to amend an already existing law rather than to propose comprehensive statutes. In such cases, it is certainly easier to prepare a draft according to formal requirements. Under Polish law, it is also permitted to change several statutes at the same time because there is no principle of the unity of the contents of the drafts. The overall political impact of initiatives As the practice of exercising the popular initiative in Poland shows, the barrier of 100,000 signatures of citizens supporting the initiative has proved to be too high for the bottom-up initiatives coming from citizens not associated with organized structures such as political parties, trade unions, associations or other social organizations. This is so in spite of the fact that 100,000 represents about 0.33 per cent of the electorate, which compared to other European countries seems to be relatively low. 9 On the other hand, the number of citizens initiatives undertaken during the first ten years is quite high and shows a great public interest in the initiative institution. Citizens seem not to have been discouraged by the fact that great efforts put into promoting an initiative do not guarantee the positive result as they lose control over the content of the proposed legislation at the moment when it is introduced to the parliament. There are no limitations on legislators interference in citizens proposals, so they can be changed completely by the deputies or rejected just at the beginning of the legislative procedure at the first reading of the draft. Nevertheless, if we also take

15 226 Practices of Agenda Initiatives into consideration the observed cases of prolonging the legislative procedures on citizens proposals, it seems quite likely that civil society organizations are likely to consider other possibilities to influence legislation, such as lobbying which has been legally regulated in Poland since 2005, or convincing a group of 15 deputies to present the draft as their own. The popular initiative as it is provided in the Polish Constitution is commonly referred to as a form of direct democracy in Polish legal literature. In fact, it would be more accurate to call it a form of semi-direct democracy or a form of participatory democracy as it creates a tool for citizens to initiate the legislative process in a wide range of issues, but it is always the representative body which makes the final decision. Therefore, the Polish model of citizens legislative initiative is an example of an agenda initiative (also defined as indirect initiative ). Unlike for example in Lithuania, there is no possibility of calling a nationwide referendum which would allow people to vote on the final act if the initial draft is rejected or significantly changed by the parliament. At the moment there is no public debate on the introduction of the popular initiative in a full-scale version. It is mainly because of a lack of political will by the parliamentary parties and general mistrust towards people s ability to make laws in a direct way which is often expressed by politicians and academics. Even in the academic discourse, the idea of giving people an opportunity to make laws through a popular vote has been perceived as a political fiction rather than a real possibility of citizen empowerment. However, as the practice shows, the popular initiative is still an important element of Polish public life which enhances citizens participation in governing the country and the development of the civil society. Notes 1. However, the formal requirement that the decision undertaken in the referendum is binding only if it is supported by at least 50 per cent of the total electorate resulted in a rather showy character of this instrument. 2. The texts of these constitutional drafts are available in Polish in Kallas (1992). 3. The detailed analysis of these proposals has been covered in Uziębło (2006), pp To be more precise, the Polish Constitution refers to the principle of the sovereignty of the nation perceived in political terms as all citizens eligible to vote. 5. The Supreme Court in Poland is the highest court that exercises supervision over common and military courts regarding judgments as well as performs

16 Anna Rytel-Warzocha 227 other activities specified in the Constitution and statutes. It is a separate judicial body from the Constitutional Tribunal which main task is to supervise the compliance of statutory law with the Constitution. 6. For the complete list of the initiatives undertaken by Polish citizens in the period , see Rytel (2006). 7. The legislative procedure was not continued in the case of the law on the National Education Foundation as the Sejm had de facto adopted that statute, but it was rejected by the Senate. The exemption from the operation of the rule of discontinuity of parliamentary works applies only to cases when the legislative procedure has been interrupted before the third reading when voting on the draft takes place. 8. The Sejm did not continue the rest of the unfinished legislative procedures as the exception to the rule of discontinuity of parliamentary works applies only to one consecutive term of office. 9. The number of signatures required in support of initiatives in other European countries is put forward in Table 14.1 in Chapter 14. References Kallas, M. (ed.) (1992) Projekty konstytucyjne (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe). Litawski, J. (1932) Bezpośrednie ustawodawstwo ludowe (Kraków: Drukarnia Ericha Frommera). Rytel, A. (2006) Popular initiative in Poland, org, date accessed 5 July Szmyt, A. (1998) Obywatelska inicjatywa ustawodawcza, Gdańskie Studia Prawnicze, 3, pp Uziębło, P. (2006) Inicjatywa ustawodawcza obywateli w Polsce na tle rozwiazań ustrojowych państw obcych (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe). Legal texts Act on the manner of executing the citizens legislative initiative, 24 June Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland Dziennik Ustaw of 23 July 1999, No. 62, item 688. Act on nation-wide referendum, 14 March Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland Dziennik Ustaw of 2 April 1999, No. 57, item 507. Constitution of the Republic of Poland, 2 April Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland Dziennik Ustaw of 1997, No. 78, item 483. Standing Order of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Article 34 of the Act of 30 July Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland Monitor Polski of 21 January 2009, No. 5, item 47.