Plato v Illich

Towns should elect police commissioners to hold local commanders and officers to account, a think tank says.

Policy Exchange said commissioners could represent communities and replace anonymous and weak police authorities.

Each commissioner would represent one of the 228 "basic command units" in England and Wales, typically a town-sized area with 400 officers.

The right-leaning think tank's proposal goes further than Conservative plans for a commissioner for each force.

Each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales is divided into basic command units.

The think tank says that elected commissioners for each of these areas would facilitate regular public forums to hold to account the local police commander.

In turn, the commissioners for each area would form a new body that would replace police authorities that currently oversee each force.

The report argues that as these new bodies are created, chief constables and their local commanders should also be cut loose of targets set by the Home Office to allow them to "respond to community priorities".

Legislation enabling home secretaries to fire chief constables would be repealed and top officers would be given powers to appoint senior colleagues.

Natalie Evans, the author of the report, said the local commissioners would represent a radical shift in policing - but would also be in the spirit of bringing constabularies closer to the people.

"Public confidence in the police has fallen dramatically," said Ms Evans.

"The recent, tragic case of Fiona Pilkington, whose 33 calls to the police went ignored, has served to reinforce the public view that the police accountability structure as it stands is failing our local communities."

"To increase accountability and meet communities' priorities, we should abandon central targets, and create genuine localism." ...

BBC NEWS  07 November 2009

Scotland Yard riot squad faces calls to end 'culture of impunity'

'Distance' between Met and public

Acpo boss: 'lunatics' will win with Tory police plan

The Current Model is Indirect:

We elect representatives (not delegates) and they decide in all three areas.

Direct Model: Advantages

• Choices of ends and means reside with "we the people" not with our representatives;
• Responsibility for getting it right - or wrong! - rests with us: there's no one else to blame.

Direct Model: Disadvantages

• Most decisions are too complex;
• Politics has a low boredom threshold, leaving decisions at the mercy of people with a special interest, or their own agenda.

Mixed Model: Advantages

• Choices of ends reside with "we the people", our representatives do the hard bit of implementing them;
• Our choices are more likely to be implemented;
• MPs would have to change their 'modus operandi', from recognising 'the people' once every election, to becoming genuine 'servants' prepared to work towards people's wishes.

Propositional Democracy:

This November (2004), 1 million US voters will have the opportunity to Vote for Impeachment.

From Vermont to Illinois to California, voters this fall will be deciding the fate not just of candidates for Congress but of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Communities that are home to more than 1 million Americans will have an opportunity to cast ballots on the question of whether Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president.

Only the U.S. House of Representatives can impeach a member of the executive branch, and only the Senate can convict the targeted official and remove him from office. But the founders always intended for citizens to have a voice in the process. Thomas Jefferson, who argued that power must ultimately rest in the people, as they alone are the surest defenders of the republic and its democratic aspirations, observed,

"It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so."

Examples from previous US elections illustrate propositional democracy in action:

• Alaska voted 'no' to allowing people over 21 to grow, sell, or use marijuana;
• Arizona voted 'yes' to immigration checks before receipt of benefit claims and voting rights;
• California voted 'no' to stem cell research;
• Colorado voted 'no' to the state's electoral college votes being given on a proportional basis (instead of winner-takes-all);
• Florida voted to cap lawyers' fees in medical liability cases;
• Montana voted 'yes' to growing and possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes;
• Eleven states voted 'no' to same-sex marriages.

From: "We the people", The Economist, 06 November 2004

It Could Happen Here!

Propositions, such as these, could appear on the ballot paper:

• ... to alter the structure of the railways;
• ... to legalise cannabis;
• ... to restore progressive taxation;
• ... to close the country's borders to all newcomers;
• ... to turn the country into a republic;
• ... to restore the death penalty;
• ... to trigger an election.

Propositions that get 66% (or whatever %) of the vote would be listed for the next session of Parliament.

Part of the legislative process would be the examination of 'minority' responses in the sense of John Stuart Mill's "minority opinions".

Propositional democracy would fundamentally change the relationship between voters and parties, and might also alter relationships within parties:

1. Voters would be in charge of manifestos;



2. Parties would be selected for their perceived ability to carry out voters' wishes;



3. Parties would be seen as servants of the electorate:  the 'elected dictatorship' syndrome would have to disappear.

Examples of Direct Accountability:

Your local Chief Constable has been in post for five years.

At the polling station you can vote for one of the four new candidates.
There is a space where you can vote for "None of the above".
If this last tops the poll, a new election with new candidates has to be called.

Your local Chief Constable has been "recalled" by x per cent of the electorate, who are dissatisfied with the crime figures.
At the polling station you can vote for her, or one of the three new candidates.

Your local Primary Care Trust needs a new Chief Executive.

The process is the same as for the Chief Constable.

Other Local "In Charge" Appointments:

The process of direct elections is the same.

National "In Charge" Appointments:

Appointments to head all quangos/commissions/agencies/you name it, should all be open to democratic scrutiny.

A designated Parliamentary Appointments Committee - independent of the Executive - would interview and select from a short list, with the right to reject all candidates.

... the best example of something that approaches real democracy is Switzerland.

Consider the town of Kilchberg on the shore of Lake Zurich (7,000 residents). The village arranges its own education, has its own fire brigade and its own police. There is a municipal council of seven elected councillors who monitor the work of municipal officials.

The real power of decision, however, lies with the public assembly that meets four times a year. Meetings are usually attended by some 400 municipal residents. These meetings set the tax rates, approve new municipal by-laws, discuss the municipal accounts, consider construction plans etc.

A supporter of the quorum system would probably say that a public assembly at which 400 of the 7,000 residents were present is "not representative". Actually, the assembly constitutes a super-representative municipal council. This large municipal council has a mandate, just like a traditionally elected municipal council. Anyone who goes to the meeting is a mandatory; anyone who stays at home gives a mandate to the meeting. The idea that direct popular management is inefficient is disproved here in practice.

Paul Carline
Initiative and Referendum Institute