The Imperative mandate is a political system in which representatives are required to enact policies in accordance with orders or instructions received from the voters. Failure to follow these instructions may result in the representative being dismissed or recalled.[1]

History

The imperative mandate goes back to the Middle Ages.[1] It was disregarded by the French National Assembly of 1789,[2][3] but then it was briefly embraced by the revolutionary assemblies in Paris in 1793.[1] It was embraced in the Paris Commune and by the Council Communism movement, as well as by Vladimir Lenin in "The State and Revolution"[4] and by the Zapatistas in Mexico.[1]

Prohibition

Most representative democracies follow a system of a free mandate, where once elected a representative may enact any policy free from any orders. Many of these countries specifically prohibit the imperative mandate as incompatible with democracy.[5]

It was also rejected in the American Revolution,[1] following the modern representative system[6] but some U.S. States in their constitutions know the recall. In any case, there are recent episodes of erosion of the ban.[7]

France

The elimination of an imperative mandate was one of the constitutional effects of the French Revolution of 1789.

The French Constitution of 1791 specifically prohibited the practice:

"The representatives elected in the departments will not be representatives of a particular department, but of the whole nation, and no mandate can be conferred on them"

— French Constitution of 1791 , art. 7, section III, chapter I, title III.

This view represented a shift in the attributing sovereignty to the people as a whole through their representatives where it was previously attributed solely in the monarch. As described by Ernesto Galli della Loggia: "Every single person elected by the people, every parliamentarian, is the representative of the nation-people as a whole, and therefore the depositary of its entire sovereign will (...) They must necessarily represent, equally symbolically, the whole people, the electoral body in its entirety. In continental European representative democracies there is a ban on the [imperative] mandate ".[8]

In France, on April 3, 2022, Jean Lassalle committed, before a notary, to implement the three main points of his program before the legislative elections if he is elected in the 2022 presidential elections. These points include the Citizens' Initiative Referendum for constitutional matters, the recognition of blank votes, and reducing the VAT on hydrocarbons from 20% to 5.5%. He became the first French presidential candidate to commit to an imperative mandate.[9][10] The commitment was made in the form of a notarized pledge, which is a legally binding act that holds the individual personally accountable and is separate from the political mandate itself, making it legally valid.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Who’s Afraid of the Imperative Mandate? Archived 2018-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, Massimiliano Tomba, Critical Times, 1(1), 2018
  2. ^ Constitutional Culture and Democratic Rule (Murphy Institute Studies in Political Economy) by John Ferejohn, Jack N. Rakove, and Jonathan Riley, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 052179370X/ISBN 978-0521793704
  3. ^ The Remaking of France: The National Assembly and the Constitution of 1791 by Michael Fitzsimmons, Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0521893771/ISBN 978-0521893770
  4. ^ "The State and Revolution - Chapter 3". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2021-08-16.
  5. ^ Venice Commission (2009). "Report on the Imperative Mandate and Similar Practices". Retrieved October 10, 2022.
  6. ^ On how the Anglo-Saxon system considers, as a business of Parliament, the undue claim that the mandate is imperative, v. Erskine May’s Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, edited by Sir C. Gordon, London, Butterworths 1989 (20th ed.), p. 128, which describes the case that in 1974 led to a letter of apology from the trade unions, who had summoned some parliamentarians, their members, for explanations on a vote given to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom: the letter stopped a complaint of Parliament for intimidation against the freedom of self-determination of the parliamentarian.
  7. ^ «Ms Cheney and the only other Republican on the panel, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have become pariahs in their party amid conservative backlash to their participation in the inquiry»: Max Matza, January 6 panel votes to issue subpoena for Trump testimony, BBC news, 14 October 2022.
  8. ^ Ernesto Galli della Loggia, Vincolo di mandato: gli eletti e le idee confuse, Corriere della Sera, 28 September 2019
  9. ^ "Présidentielle: Lassalle promet de donner tous ses biens s'il ne respecte pas ses promesses une fois élu". BFMTV (in French). Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  10. ^ "Lassalle s'engage à donner tous ses biens s'il ne respecte pas ses promesses une fois élu". L'Obs (in French). 2022-04-05. Retrieved 2023-07-20.

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