Debating Democracy

Around the world, faith in democracy is falling. Partisanship and mutual distrust are increasing. What, if anything, should we do about these problems? In this accessible work, leading philosophers Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore debate whether the solution lies in having less democracy or more. Brennan argues that democracy has systematic flaws, and that democracy does not and cannot work the way most of us commonly assume. He argues the best solution is to limit democracy’s scope and to experiment with certain voting systems that can overcome democracy’s problems. Landemore argues that democracy’s virtues, which stem, at an ideal level, from its inclusiveness and egalitarian distribution of power, are not properly manifested in the historical regime form that we call “representative democracy.” Whereas representative democracy centers on an oligarchic form of representation by elected officials, Landemore defends a more authentic paradigm of popular rule—open democracy—in which legislative power is open to all on an equal basis, including via lottery-based mechanisms.

Legislative power as a legitimate basis for legislative activity

The article is devoted to the study of the nature of the legislative pover and the disclosure of its role to serve as a legitimate basis for legislative activity. The provision is substantiated that the parliament, as a representative body of the whole people, has the highest level of legitimacy and on this basis exercises the right to legislate public relations according to the principle of separation of powers, including the exclusive right to regulate the most important issues of organization and exercise of power (article 92 of the Constitution of Ukraine). The relationship between the concepts of legislative power and legislative activity of the parliament is revealed and the recognition of the legislative activity of the parliament as the main, key function of the parliament and the organizational way of implementing the legislative power of the state is substantiated. The conditions, scope, limits, advantages and disadvantages of the practice of delegated legislation, which is widespread in democratic countries, as well as the legally sanctioned government rule-making on the basis of the instructions of the government provided by separate laws are investigated. The powers of the parliament in the field of law-making activity are analyzed, the source of which is the legislative power delegated by the people to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, due to which the parliament receives from the people the primary right to carry out its law-making activity. The essence of legislative activity carried out within the legislative process is revealed, as activity on revealing of need for legal regulation of public relations, estimation of draft laws, their completion, carrying out professional examination, discussion and completion in committees, i.e. all actions directed on proper elaboration of laws’ projects. It is noted that the legislative process is not only and not so much limited by parliament, but also includes pre-parliamentary stages of work on the draft law (initiation, drafting, public discussion, examination, coordination with interested bodies and organizations). The general characteristic of subjects of law-making activity is given, the nature of powers of parliament on the organization and implementation of control over law-making activity is analyzed.

Kewenangan Kejaksaan dalam Melakukan Penahanan Terhadap Pelaku Tindak Pidana Ujaran Kebencian di Sosial Media

Authority is what is called formal power, power comes from legislative power (given by law) or from executive administrative power. Authority, which usually consists of several powers, is power over a certain group of people or power over an area of ​​government. The purposes of this study are to analyze the arrangement of the prosecutor's authority in detaining the perpetrators of hate speech crimes on social media and the prosecutor's obstacles in detaining the perpetrators of hate speech crimes on social media. The research method applied in this research is normative legal research with a statutory and a conceptual approach. The technique of collecting legal materials is done by means of a literature study. The of used are primary, secondary, and tertiary sources of legal materials. After the legal material has been collected, it will then be processed and analyzed using the method of processing legal materials systematically and presented descriptively. The results of the study reveal that the prosecutor's authority is regulated in the criminal procedural law code, the prosecutor's authority law. Which includes several laws, among others, Law no. 16 of 2004 which regulates the prosecutor's office, so that from the law it can be ascertained about the rights and powers of the prosecutor so that law enforcers, especially the prosecutor's office, can make detentions in accordance with the rules that have been in force, so that there is no abuse of authority by law enforcers, especially prosecutors and as The prosecutor's office should be obliged to realize equality for all Indonesian citizens who are being entangled in criminal, civil and other cases.

Life in the Middle

For almost thirty years, political scientists have believed that the US Senate would be less affected by partisan polarization due to the existence of a handful of moderate senators who would act as power brokers between the two sides, yet year after year we see partisan gridlock. Life in the Middle argues that the belief in the powerful, pivotal moderate neglects their electoral circumstances and overestimates their legislative power. Indeed, not all senators are elected under equal circumstances where the modern centrist has to balance between two conflicting constituencies like Susan Collins in Maine, or represents a state where the opposition outnumbers their base like Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Using data compiled from the Congressional Record, the book examines the legislative behavior of moderates and finds that they seldom amend legislation to their preferences, rarely speak on the record, and often lose on final votes. Using unique interview data with nineteen legislative directors and six retired centrist senators, it also finds that the behind-the-scenes conversations mirror the on-stage behavior where centrists are not influential or viewed as pivotal by party leaders. Furthermore, moderates reported less satisfaction with legislative outcomes than their peers. Life in the Middle suggests that lawmaking needs to be re-evaluated as being much more variable and less reliant on the work of moderates and more on party leaders. Indeed, the mainstream concerns about polarization and its negative effects of increased gridlock and ideological legislation may be true.

NIGERIAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY’S LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT, THE POWERS OF SUMMONS AND APPOINTMENTS’ RATIFICATION

The legislature as First Estate of the realm represents citizens and sovereignty. It makes the law, serve as checks on the activities of the executive (oversight) and represent the citizens in constituencies. The responsibility of the Parliaments is to guarantee that accountability and transparency of government activities are maintained in order to curb misuse of public funds, corruption, while effecting good practices. It also scrutinizes the nominees for top government positions by the executive arm while it ensures that the requests sent by the executive are properly examined in order to avoid inefficiency and non-performance. However, the paper relying on secondary research method and data gathering discover that limited political will by legislators, inadequate funds, deteriorating infrastructural facilities, pressure from the Executive, predominance of inexperience legislators in the art of lawmaking and the tendency to place a higher premium of personal and pecuniary interests at the expense of public interests are antithetical to the effective legislative power of summons and appointment ratification in the National Assembly. Therefore, the paper recommended that there is a need for legislators to shun mediocrity and rise above pecuniary, sectional and party interests in favour of the protection of democracy and its practices.

6. Parliamentary sovereignty

This chapter focuses on parliamentary sovereignty. The term ‘parliamentary sovereignty’ is normally defined as the ‘legislative supremacy of Parliament’. Since the constitutional settlement brought about by the Bill of Rights 1689, the UK Parliament has had unchallenged authority to create primary law. Parliament’s legislative supremacy means, therefore, that there is no competing body with equal or greater law-making power and there are no legal limits on Parliament’s legislative competence. Parliament has broad legislative power but cannot make unchangeable statutes, and a current parliament can reverse laws made by a previous parliament. Nobody but Parliament can override Acts of Parliament. The Enrolled Bill rule requires that, if a Bill has passed through the House of Commons and House of Lords and received royal assent, the courts will not enquire into what happened before or during the legislative process.

7. Legislative Powers

This chapter addresses what the legislative powers of the European Union are, and what types of procedures are legislative procedures. It begins by analysing the scope of the Union's legislative competences. This scope is limited, as the Union is not a sovereign State. The chapter then looks at the different categories of Union competences. Depending on what competence category is involved, the Union will enjoy distinct degrees of legislative power. The chapter also considers the identity of the Union legislator. Various legislative procedures thereby determine how the Union must exercise its legislative competences. Finally, the chapter scrutinizes the principle of subsidiarity as a constitutional principle that controls the exercise of the Union's shared legislative powers.