—Mariana Velasco-Rivera, National University of Ireland Maynooth, School of Law and Criminology; Co-Editor, IACL Blog. Twitter: @marisconsin. [Editor’s Note: This is one of our regular ICONnect columns.] In recent years, a series of constitutional amendments have introduced mechanisms of direct democracy in Mexico—in particular, referendums (2012) and Presidential recall elections (2019). The first referendum in
The Implementation Initiative (“Durchsetzungsinitiative”): Deepening the Divide Between Citizens and Non-Citizens in Switzerland
—Rekha Oleschak, Institute of Federalism, University of Fribourg[1] On 28 February 2016, Swiss citizens will go to polls again, this time to exercise their direct democratic rights on a wide range of issues, including taxation, prohibition of speculation on commodities, whether or not to have a second tunnel to the Gotthard and finally, on the
The Internet Tax Debate: Genuine Freedom of Assembly vs. the Illusion of Direct Democracy in Hungary
—Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy, ELTE University, Budapest On October 21, 2014, Hungarian government officials announced that in the 2015 state budget they would include a tax on internet data transfer. This so-called internet tax was widely criticized in the media and in civil society. A rapidly growing protest movement was organized on Facebook and a demonstration took
‘And the Winner is… the Referendum’: Scottish Independence and the Deliberative Participation of Citizens
—Stephen Tierney, University of Edinburgh* Only 45% of Scots said yes to independent statehood, but a massive majority said yes to direct democracy. The turnout of 84.65% was the highest for any UK electoral event since the introduction of universal suffrage, significantly trumping the 65.1% who voted in the 2010 UK general election and the
Direct Democracy and Constitutional Change: Institutional Learning from State Laboratories in the USA
—Jurgen Goossens, Ph.D. Candidate Ghent University, LL.M. Yale Law School Although the federal constitutional amendment procedure in Article V of the U.S. Constitution has not been altered since its adoption 226 years ago, constitutional tradition in the 50 states has substantially evolved. For instance, popular referenda were unknown in 1787, but are now ubiquitous in
