Brazil

?Clean Slate? Bill of Popular Initiative

City/State/Region
Begin – End: 1997 – 2010
Name of organization in charge: Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB) e pela Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (CNBB)
Type of organization in charge: civil society
Level: national

Impact

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Implementation: was the innovation effectively, partially or not put into practice at all?

Fulfillment of Aims: were the goals of the innovation completely, partially or not achieved at all?

Output: has the innovation generated recommendations, initiatives, decisions or policies?

Outcome: if there were a policy output, was it enacted or implemented?

Implementation: yes
Fulfillment of Democratic Innovation’s aim: yes
Output: yes
Policy Outcome: yes

The ?Ficha Limpa? (lit. Clean Record) Bill of Popular Initiative was organized by civil society entities, and gathered around 1.6 million signatures with the aim of increasing the repute of political candidates. The story of the ?Ficha Limpa? bill began with the ?Fighting electoral corruption" campaign, in February 1997. It was delivered to Congress on September 24th, 2009 ? with 85% of its signatures being collected by the ?Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil? (National Conference of Bishops in Brazil), in its parishes and dioceses. It was approved eight months later, establishing the ?Ficha Limpa? Act, or Complementary Act no. 135, and was legally valid from the local elections of 2012 on. The law makes a candidate who has had his mandate revoked, has resigned to avoid impeachment or is convicted by a collegiate body, ineligible. The project was approved by the House of Representatives on May 5th, 2010, and approved unanimously by the Senate on May 19th, 2010. Laws of Popular Initiative are provided for in Brazil by the Constitution of 1988. In order to commence this legislative process, the bill must be supported by one per cent of the national electorate in at least five states and at least 0.3% of voters from each state.

Institutional design

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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: single
Mode of selection of participants: open
Type of participants: citizens civil society
Decisiveness: democratic innovation yields no decision
Co-Governance: no

Means

Deliberation
Direct Voting
E-Participation
Citizen Representation

Ends

Accountability
Responsiveness
Rule of Law
Political Inclusion
Social Equality

Policy cycle

Agenda setting

Formulation and decision-making

Implementation

Policy Evaluation