Popular Initiative
The Popular Initiative is a mechanism provided by the Argentine National Constitution since its last reform in 1994. It allows citizens to submit bills directly to the Chamber of Deputies. In order for this initiative to be entered, it must first be presented to the Ombudsman to verify the validity of the content of the text, and be supported by at least 1.5% of the electoral register used for the last election of national deputies, as well as represent at least six constituencies. This support is expressed through the collection of valid signatures in forms that must be attached to the project, which should add up to approximately 380 000 signatures. Congress must treat the project presented by a valid initiative in a period of twelve months, which can either accept or reject the initiative. The Constitution also foresees topics excluded from the possibility of being treated by popular initiative, such as: taxes, budget, constitutional reform, criminal law and the approval of international treaties.
Institutional design
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- Formalization
- embedded in the constitution/legislation
- Frequency
- sporadic
- Mode of selection of participants
- open
- Type of participants
- citizens
- Decisiveness
- democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision
- Co-Governance
- yes
Means
|
Ends
|
