Tuesday 22 February 2011

Never mind about a lack of eDemocracy - what about a lack of democracy?

An article on ePolitix comments on the lack of a UK strategy for eDemocracy, noting that:
".....the government is revamping its ePetitions system, and is linking them to parliamentary procedures so that those with over 100,000 signatories will be guaranteed a Commons debate, and the most popular being introduced as legislation. One of the most important parts of this plan is that the ePetitions system will be hosted on the government's DirectGov website, and not on the parliamentary site."
Setting to one side the argument that by hosting a petitions system on a government website it assists said government to fulfill its manifesto commitments, is not the House of Commons - as the Legislature - not supposed to act as a constraint on the designs of the Executive?

Therefore should not petitions from the public be submitted to those who are, supposedly, elected to represent the public?

Just asking.......................

Whichever way this is considered, the aim that the ePetitions system is hosted on a government website is no more than a further example of what I have termed 'Democratised Dictatorship'!

No comments: