[Reader-list] Swiss referendum

[Rahul Asthana]

Hi Patrice,
Would be interesting to know what the arguments of your friends are.Arguments against referenda are not an argument against democracy itself. In any case I feel uncomfortable if all parts of a constitution is subject to the unfettered tyranny of the majority,without being subject to judicial review.
Some of my friends have argued that judicial review is nothing but elitism where the zeitgeist is subject to the snobbery of a few learned people.I do not necessarily see it as such.I see it as a check/balance which can guard against temporal swings in opinion.After all,the judiciary  is protecting nothing else but the basic principles upon  which a particular constitution is based on.
In a country like India, such a "referendum happy" direct democracy is difficult to implement because of reasons of logistics,so here this issue would probably have been framed as a power struggle between the legislature and the judiciary. Here, judicial review is important because legislature is not the same as direct democracy and till the time the legislature goes back to the peoples' court again the judiciary should be there to protect the interests of the people
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but AFAIK in India judiciary has the right to review everything.This may probably slow down change but as I said earlier is a good check against temporal frenzy. 
I have thought about this and probably I would go with a system in which the heart of the constitution is not sacrosanct but it can only be changed after a given number of consecutive referendums(not one) vote for the change.

Thanks

Rahul



--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Patrice Riemens <patrice at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> From: Patrice Riemens <patrice at xs4all.nl>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Swiss referendum
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 3:47 PM
> 
> 
> Hee Shuddha,
> 
> Funny (I mean just that, funny ;-)  piece you wrote as
> reaction on my own.
> Yet I beg to disagree with you on your optimism about the
> 43 % who voted
> in against the ban on minarets. In electoral politics, 57,5
> % is a very
> clear and stark majority (unless you live in some sort of
> dictatorship -
> or in Maguindanao (.ph) - , and in the Swiss case, 19
> cantons out of 23
> makes it even more so.
> 
> At this juncture, like it or not, 'the Sovereign' has
> spoken - even if it
> has entangled itself in its own irresoluble contradictions.
> Denying this,
> or even worse, coming with all kinds of arguments against
> referenda (i.e
> democracy itself) as you did _not_, but many of my (Swiss)
> frieds did, is
> not very helpful.
> 
> Europe will have to come rather soon to terms with its own
> hangups about
> wanting to have the immigration cake, keep it, sell it, eat
> it, and then
> take a triple mortgage on the bloody backery (and then
> maybe
> 'insure-and-burn' it for good measure...;-)
> 
> Cheers, patrizio & Diiiinooos!
> 
> 
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