Citizens’ legislative initiative in practice: on the debate concerning the project “Stop Abortion”

Abstract

The work focuses on the analysis of the 2015 citizens’ legislative initiative
“Stop Abortion” and gives a careful thought to this instrument in the light
of the assumptions of the theory of liberal democracy. I reconstruct the circumstances
of the legislative initiative, its political, social and cultural context
and the discussion on the project in the Sejm. A citizens’ legislative initiative
(CLI) as a new democratic instrument was intended to be a response to problems
and deficiencies of democracy in Poland, an idea to make social and
political life democratic by increasing general activeness of citizens and their
participation in taking state decisions.
I analyse the CLI of “Stop Abortion” as a project activating a broad,
individual and organised, citizens’ initiative in the “world of life” and if it
meets the requirements of participative democracy. Political actors treat this
big social and cultural capital gathered around the initiative “Stop Abortion”
in an instrumental way.
The discussion on the “Stop Abortion” project in the Sejm is a denial of
the requirements of deliberative democracy. Simply speaking, the initiators
of “Stop Abortion” impose their subjective point of view on the state, which
they want to use as a tool in popularising their views as legally binding rules,
which is in conflict with values and endangers the foundations of liberal
democracy. It is also an indication of degradation of public language and
political communication.