Local Citizen Initiatives in Poland: The Disparity in Signature Requirements

• Authors: Dorota Lis-Staranowicz , Monika Giżyńska

Title variants

PL

Local Citizen Initiatives in Poland: The Disparity in Signature Requirements

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the social sciences, the attention is drawn to the relationship between instruments of direct democracy and signature requirement, because the latter may block the activity of citizens. Therefore, this paper focuses on signature requirements of local citizen’ initiatives (LCI), which is also analyzed from the perspective of the principle of equality. We identify: the legal threshold of support (LTS) and the actual threshold of support (ATS). The legal threshold is construed as the statutory requirement of support (quantified or specified as a percentage), whereas the actual threshold of support is the quotient of the number of signatures required and the total number of residents in a given district. With respect to the LCI, a district is an area of a municipality, poviat and voivodship. The ATS is an indicator used by us to study the principle of equality.

Keywords

EN

direct democracy, local citizens’ initiatives, signature requirements, the legal threshold of support, the actual threshold of support

• Publisher: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
• Journal: Review of European and Comparative Law
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 45-66

Dates

published

2020-03-31

Contributors

author

Dorota Lis-Staranowicz

author

Monika Giżyńska

Identifiers

DOI

10.31743/recl.5708