“The democratic tool of the referendum can be misused and turned against democracy itself” | EUROtoday

Ln November 6, the Senate should debate a constitutional invoice aimed toward defending our democracy in opposition to a mortal hazard, very actual in the present day: plebiscitary illiberalism.

We, authors of this proposal and of the e book [La « Révolution nationale » en 100 jours, et comment l’éviter, Gallimard, 64 pages, 3,90 euros] which impressed it, we want to clarify how the democratic instrument of the referendum may be misused and turned in opposition to democracy itself, and the way including a easy clarification to the textual content of our Constitution will make it attainable to keep away from this drift, with out limiting the chances of session of our fellow residents.

The textual content which shall be debated within the coming days could be very easy: it solely goals to reaffirm what the drafters of the Constitution had deliberate in 1958 in its article 89, particularly that the Constitution should be revised in two phases: first by a conforming vote of the National Assembly and the Senate, then by referendum or by the Congress, which brings collectively the 2 assemblies, by a three-fifths majority.

In 1962, General de Gaulle prompted hassle through the use of a provision which had a really completely different goal: Article 11, to arrange a referendum bypassing Parliament with a view to undertake the direct election of the President of the Republic. This method was then unanimously condemned as unconstitutional by the Council of State, the Constitutional Council and the 2 assemblies, however the reform had come to an finish, because of the lack of an efficient treatment in opposition to this institutional coup.

A minimal of political consensus

After the failure of the second constitutional referendum of 1969 on the premise of article 11 and the rise in energy of the Constitutional Council, the overwhelming majority of jurists in the present day agree that the Constitution can solely be modified by article 89, which, in reality, has been the one revision methodology used over the past fifty years. Why, then, ought to we rewrite within the Constitution what it already says?

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