Facts and Arguments about the Introduction of Initiative and ...

2-1: The public assembly.
The public assembly is the oldest and simplest manifestation
of democracy.
In the Athens of Pericles (450 to 430 BC), the public assembly
(ekklesia) was the highest authority, approving
the laws and making decisions on war and peace. The
Athenian public assembly permitted no representation
that would take over its role or authority. The principle of
equality had not yet appeared. Only ‘citizens’ (in the meaning
of the word at that time) were admitted to the public
assembly; slaves were excluded. In Pericles’ time there
were around 30,000 citizens, compared with 100,000 to
250,000 slaves. Not all the citizens had equal votes: possessions
played a major role.
Similar public assemblies emerged at many places in Europe
in the late Middle Ages. Lecomte (1995, 2003), for example,
describes the practices in the small Belgian town
of Fosses-la-Ville, when this belonged to the diocese of the
principality of Liège. We know about the exact organisation
of the local administration in Fosses-la-Ville from a charter
of 11 December 1447. The day-to-day management of
the town was performed by a municipal council that was
elected once a year.
The heads of the town’s households assembled for this purpose
at the lower town gate of Fosses and appointed the
members of the municipal council by a simple majority of
votes. After the fifteenth century, these public assemblies
were held in each district, but the system itself actually remained
unchanged. Not only did the citizens in the town
itself vote, but the ‘bourgeois forains’ (non-residents who
nonetheless enjoyed citizenship rights) from the surrounding
countryside voted as well.
The gathering of assembled citizens was called the ‘généralité’.
They not only appointed the municipal council, but
also had powers to deal with all the important issues. The
municipal council could not make decisions itself, but was
required to convene a public assembly. Lecomte summarises
the following powers, which inherently belonged to
the prerogatives of the ‘généralité’:
• issuing new regulations and statutes
• selling or mortgaging municipal goods and properties
• important public works
• approving the end-of-year accounts
• imposing taxes
It was the mayor’s job to convene the ‘généralité’ whenever
a decision was needed in one of these areas. The municipal
council’s job was essentially executive: it was responsible
for looking after ongoing affairs, but new principles and
major decisions always needed to be directly approved by
the citizens. Lecomte correctly emphasises the qualitative
difference between the direct-democratic regime of Fosses
and the current system, in which it is not the citizens but
rather the municipal councillors who make the major decisions:
“… there is an essential difference between the mediaeval
community council of Fosses and the same council
today. Nowadays, the council enacts local byelaws and sets
communal taxes. None of this existed in the 15 th century.
The power to make local laws belonged essentially to the
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‘généralité’ i.e. to the general assembly of those citizens
called upon to express their views on all matters which affected
the interests of the town community, over and above
the day-to-day administration.” (Lecomte 2003, p. 154).
At least 85% of Swiss municipalities are nowadays still
managed through the public assembly (Kriesi 1992, p. 113).
At the cantonal level, the public assembly (Landsgemeinde)
now exists only in Appenzell and Glarus. These assemblies
date from the late Middle Ages (the oldest document containing
decisions made by a Landsgemeinde dates from
1294) and are possibly historically connected with the Old
Germanic or Scandinavian tradition of the ‘Thing’.
The Landsgemeinde of the Appenzell Innerrhoden canton
meets once a year on Appenzell’s central market square on
the last Sunday in April. All citizens aged 18 and over can
attend (until 1992, the minimum age was 20). Generally,
25% to 35% of the citizens entitled to vote turn out, which is
some 3,000 people. If there are controversial issues on the
agenda, this number usually increases. Voting is by a show
of hands, in which the ‘abmehren’ (checking who has the
majority) sometimes runs into problems.
Besides the election of the Standeskommission (governing
council), the Landamman (a type of president of the council)
and the Kantonsgericht (cantonal court), mandatory items
on the agenda of the Landsgemeinde are the following:
• a possible change to the cantonal constitution
• all laws or statutory amendments that have been prepared
by the Grosser Rat (literally the ‘big council’)
• all proposals for new public expenditure of more than
500,000 Swiss francs, or renewable expenditure of at
least 100,000 francs a year for a period of at least five
years (finance referendum, since 1976)
• laws or amendments to the cantonal constitution proposed
by citizens, for which one signature is sufficient
• if at least one citizen requests it: a vote on any decision
to spend at least 250,000 Swiss francs or at least 50,000
francs a year for a period of at least five years
Thus, no law can come into force in Appenzell Innerrhoden
without it first being approved by the public assembly. Every
citizen has the right to speak at the assembly. There are no
restrictions on the number of speakers or on the speaking
time. In practice, this does not cause any problems because
speakers are brief and to the point, and do not repeat each
other. (Hutter, 2001; Carlen, 1996)
In various states in north-eastern USA, an administrative tradition
also exists that is based on the so-called ‘Open Town
Meetings’ (OTMs), which can be traced back directly to the
Pilgrim Fathers (Zimmerman 1999). The highest administrative
body in the community is not an elected municipal
council, but an open public assembly. The OTM basically
meets once a year. All the registered voters from the community
can speak and vote at the assembly. The assembly is
convened by the ‘Board of Selectmen’. This is a committee
whose members were appointed at the previous sitting of the
OTM, and which operates as a type of executive of the OTM.
Citizens can place items on the agenda for the OTM. This
requires: either a hundred signatures of registered voters,
or (in small municipalities) the signatures of one tenth of
the number of registered voters. The selectmen can place