User:LordsReform/aims
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[edit] Introduction
For main article see: Lords Reform
Prior to 1997 the House of Lords had a massive inbuilt conservative majority. During the 1975-76 session of the previous labour government the Lords had inflicted 126 defeats, the greatest on any administration. In its 1997 election manifesto the labour party promised that:
"The House of Lords must be reformed - the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute .
[edit] Royal Commission
The Royal Commission's key recommendations expressed the need for a more democratic chamber as:
...It should be broadly representative of society in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 21st century. ... It should give the United Kingdom's constituent nations and regions, for the first time, a formally constituted voice in the Westminster Parliament." (Recommendation 1)
[edit] The Main Government Proposals
The government said:
- No group in society should in future have privileged hereditary access to the House;
- Membership (of the Lords) should be separated from the peerage which would continue as a honour;
- Its political membership should be broadly representative of the main parties' relative voting strengths as reflected in the previous General Election;
- It should be largely nominated including a significant minority of independent members as well as members elected to represent the nations and regions within the UK;
- There should be increased representation of women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds;
[edit] Consulation
In November 2001 the government requested submission saying:
All these elements are consistent with the Government's electoral mandate.
They did however have a number of areas where "the Government would welcome views" on the way to achieve a more democratic house including:
- The overall balance between, elected, nominated and ex officio members, and the balance between political and independent members;
- Whether elections to the Lords should be linked to General Elections, those for the European Parliament, or over time linked to those from devolved and regional bodies within the UK;
[edit] Consultation Responses
The result was an unprecented response with some 1101 proposals covering a vast range of views on how & whether it is necessary to achieve a more democratic House of Lords. In particular these views expressed a number of divergent views on democracy.
[edit] Appointed cannot be democratic
A large number of consultees were of the opinion that any form of appointed chamber would be undemocratic:
"In a democracy, I find it offensive that we can have a chamber of the paliament substantially nominated or appointed. Powers of patronage are an affront to democracy and I have little confidence in an independant panel given our experience of the so-called "people's peers" who are indistinguishable form those appointed through political patronage. Accountability is an essential element of a democratic sociaty and the ability of the ruled to remove their rulers (John Austin MP)
[edit] Greek Versus Modern View of Democracy
A significant divide between proposals stems from their different interpretations of the meaning of democracy. Democracy as a term has been applied to many different, even contradictory forms of government since it was first coined sometime in the 5th century BC. This has given rise to many widely different views on its meaning.
[edit] Greek Democracy
One group of proposals draw their inspiration from the original Athenian model for democracy. One of the earliest writers to describe this model was Herodotus and he sets three tests for the system of government that he also called both isonomia (equality of political rights):
The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality, and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public. (Herodotus quoting Otanes c492BC)
We can see from this three tests for democracy:
- A democracy requires that offices are selected by allotment or ballot (now used mainly for selection of Juries in the Anglo-Saxon legal systems).
- At the end of their allotment Athenian officials were required to account for their actions in office before the people.
- Discussion about government was conducted in public by ordinary citizens.
Greeks writers commentating on Greek Democracy never use democracy to mean an elected system of government:
Democracy is a form of government in which the offices are distributed by the people among themselves by lot; (Aristotle, Rhetoric)
it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot (Aristotle, Politics 4.1294b)
Solon, ... liberated the people from slavery and restored the ancestral democracy with a skilful blending of the constitution: the Council on the Areopagus being an oligarchic element, the elective magistracies aristocratic and the law-courts democratic. (Aristotle, Politics 2.1273b)
And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices--and for the most part these offices are assigned by lot. (Plato, Republic 8.557)
by making the law-court, which was elected by lot, all-powerful … as the law-court grew strong, men courted favour with the people as with a tyrant, and so brought the constitution to the present democracy. (Aristotle, Politics 2.1274a, c350BC)
And it is interesting to note that according to figures from Mogens Herman Hansen, at the time of Desmosthenes approximately 90% of all magistrates were allotted. The notable exception being the strategoi (generals) who were elected.
[edit] Modern Democracy
Most proposals were based on a more modern interpretation of the meaning of democracy which is an evolution of the Greek concept.
Democracy as a concept first entered the English language in the 16th century when political writers started using it to describe the Greek style of government:
An other publique weale was amonge the Atheniensis, where equalitie was of astate amonge the people...This maner of gouernaunce was called in greke Democratia, in latine, Popularis potentia, in englisshe the rule of the comminaltie.
(Elyot Gov. 1531)
Although the American and French revolutions are often described by modern writers as democratic, at the time their founders called them republics as they were based on the Roman republican form of government with elected assemblies and not on the Greek democratic system. Almost all of the US founding fathers who mention democracy use it in a derogatory sense for a type of "popular" goverment:
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
(Benjamin Franklin)
In the first dictionary definition of 1828, although democracy was not seen as a form of allotment it was still inextricably seen as the form of Government in Ancient Athens:
Government by the people; a form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the power of legislation. Such was the government of Athens.
(Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828)
It was not until the working class movements of the late 18th and 19th century that we find the beginning of a mass pro-democracy movement with many organisations including the American democratic party incorporating the term in their names. One of the main demands of these movements was for fairer more democratic elections through universal franchise. It was not until the 1930s that people like Woodrow Wilson began to use "democracy" as a generic terms for countries with Universal franchise.
Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate duty to assist by example, by sober friendly counsel, and by material aid, in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.
With the advent of the cold war, democracy became a disputed term between the communists East which understood it as a term for equality of class and the capitalist West where "free" elections were characteristic of their governments.
Most consultation responses were based on this more modern popular view of democracy.
[edit] The Meaning of Democracy for an Upper Chamber
Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.
Unlike the primary chamber, an upper chamber (with a revising role) has no need for an electoral mandate, indeed a mandate can be seen as possitively harmful as it would be in conflict the primary chamber.
The usual definition of democracy is normally applied to "democratic government", as the upper chamber is not a government there is therefore some debate how it should be applied and a large range of views were expressed on this issue in the House of Lords consultation. The following is a summary of some of these views:
[edit] Makeup
Democratic may mean a body whose members match the statistical profile of the general population of voters, in terms of age, sex, and politicial pursuasion. If taken literally however, it would suggest that as less than 2% of the UK have any membership of a political party then an upper chamber ought to aim to have a similar percentage.
For those wishing some form of meritocracy which selects better candidates, there is also an obvious conflict because those selection will clearly be better than average.
[edit] Freely Chosen by the People
It is a compelling argument to say that democratic means "freely chosen by the people".
Unfortunately this only raises another question of how what we mean by "free choice". A slave free to choose between two masters could in some sense be said to have a free choice, but most people would not consider them free. When elections are very heavily dependant on the support of a party election machines, many maintain that it is impossible for someone outside a political party to get elected. Therefore they say that party political electorate really don't give the voters a free choice as only candidates backed by a party have a real chance of success.
[edit] Answerable to the People
Another suggested meaning of democratic takes the form of a form of selection in which the person chosen is answerable to the public in some way. In the original democracies this was achieved by an examination of each person at the end of their term of allotment. The UK doesn't have any concept of examining politicians at the end of their term. The nearest we have is the idea that politicians will be answerable when (or if) they stand for re-election.
Of course, parties as long term political institutions are always answerable to the public at the next election.
[edit] Political Parties
There may be no better way for the public to choose the directio of its government than for several parties to present to them their manifestos for government. By voting for the party, the public mandate the party to form a government. This process is a democratic way for the public to select their government.
But, an upper revising house, is not a government. The very party system that gives the public a democratic choice in the main chamber, is counterproductive in the upper house. Parties fight and win on their manifestos or their leadership, a manifesto is a commitment to move in a particular direction, a leader is someone who takes us their. If both the upper and lower houses are given mandates through an election, they have conflicting instructions.
