Macron’s ‘direct democracy’ to be tested as citizens’ panel on climate wraps up

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Macron’s ‘direct democracy’ to be tested as citizens’ panel on climate wraps up
Menghakima, 1 min ago 8 min read 1
A citizens’ council on climate met for the last time over the weekend to finalise proposals on climate change laws aimed at rapidly transitioning to a greener economy and enshrining the fight for climate change in the French constitution. While some view President Emmanuel Macron’s citizens’ panel as a welcome precedent and a model for more direct democracy, others say it has been fraught with disappointment and frustration.

A Myanmar court filed two new charges against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday, a lawyer acting for her said, as protesters marched in defiance of a crackdown by security forces that killed at least 18 people the previous day.

She was initially charged with illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios. Later, a charge of violating a natural disaster law by breaching coronavirus protocols was added.

Suu Kyi looked healthy though she had perhaps lost some weight, and she asked to see her legal team, lawyer Min Min Soe told Reuters.

The incitement charge was added under a section of the colonial-era penal code prohibiting the publication of information that may “cause fear or alarm” or disrupt “public tranquillity”, Min Min Soe said.

One person among a group of protesters crouching behind rubbish bins and other makeshift shields in Yangon, the commercial capital, was shot and had to be dragged away by others, according to video footage filmed by AFP.

“We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, said.

AFP independently confirmed eight deaths in Sunday’s violence, although there were fears the toll could be much higher.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a reliable monitoring group, estimated that about 30 people have been killed by security forces since the coup.

The military has justified its takeover, ending a decade-long democratic experiment, by making unfounded allegations of widespread fraud in last November’s national elections.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won the election in a landslide.

Deadly crackdown

Western powers have repeatedly condemned the generals and imposed sanctions, but the military has responded to the growing pressure at home and abroad by escalating its use of force.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets regularly over the past month to oppose the coup.

While the military has steadily increased the type of force used to try to contain the uprising, beginning with tear gas and water cannons, the weekend’s violence was the biggest escalation.

Unarmed protesters faced live rounds, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Three men were killed and at least 20 others injured when security forces moved on a rally in the southern coastal hub of Dawei.

Local rescue worker Pyae Zaw Hein said the trio were “shot dead with live rounds”, while the injured were hit by rubber bullets.

But on Monday morning, protesters again took to the streets in Dawei.

Hundreds of people were arrested over the weekend with many in Yangon taken to Insein Prison, where many of Myanmar’s leading democracy campaigners have served long jail terms under previous dictatorships.

At least one journalist documenting Sunday’s assaults by security forces was beaten and detained further north in Myitkyina, a city at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy river, according to local outlet The 74 Media.

Another reporter was shot with rubber bullets while covering a protest in the central city of Pyay, their employer said.

Several journalists documenting Saturday’s assaults by security forces were detained, including an Associated Press photographer in Yangon.

The United States has been one of the most outspoken critics of the junta, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken again reacted with horror after Sunday’s violence.

“We condemn the Burmese security forces’ abhorrent violence against the people of Burma & will continue to promote accountability for those responsible,” Blinken tweeted, using the country’s old name.

Two of the key recommendations are a prohibition against “ecocide” and the inscribing of the fight against global warming in the French constitution. The 150 – who examined reforms across six major areas including consumption, production, work, travel, housing food and governance – had presented 149 proposals by October last year. Only three were rejected.

The measures have been included in two draft laws, the “Climate and Resilience” bill and a separate constitutional bill. Some of the citizens’ recommendations include a ban on advertising fossil fuels, restrictions on short-haul domestic plane travel if other transport is available, and bans on nitrogen and other polluting fertilisers used in farming. While the draft laws are due to be debated by MPs and government ministers in the National Assembly at the end of March, many of the citizens who met for the last of a three-day video conference on Sunday have already expressed some frustration and disappointment.

His view is shared by environmental groups and other citizens of the council who have pointed the finger at steps taken to discard some earlier measures and water down others.

The High Council for Climate, an independent body, on February 23 criticised the recovery plan, green energy changes to buildings and other parts of the climate legislation that it said were lacking in ambition and the scope necessary to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Promises not kept?

Cyril Dion, a French film director, actor, writer and environmentalist who had originally been appointed by Macron to help oversee the citizens’ group, launched a scathing public attack against the president, accusing him of breaking his promise to accept proposals “without filtering” or amending them.

“For this democratic initiative to work, it is essential that you commit to taking up the proposals resulting from the citizens’ deliberation ‘as is’ and submit them to the French people or to the MPs … For years, politicians organised ‘participatory democracy’ that was a sham. Citizens are consulted and then elected officials very often do nothing. Experts are appointed, work hard … and then their recommendations are ignored, unraveled, weakened,” he wrote.

Macron shot back in an interview with the French online media outlet Brut, saying “these are not issues on which we can say, ‘Take it or leave it’ – that’s wrong”. He added that the state should not consider the climate proposals of 150 citizens to be inviolate like “the Bible or the Koran”.

Some say Dion’s criticism was warranted. According to Hélène Landemore, a professor of political science at Yale University and author of the book “Open Democracy: Reinventing popular rule for the 21st century”, the president “promised too much when he talked about sending the proposals of the citizens ‘without filtering’” directly to a referendum or parliamentary debate.

It has also given Macron’s political rivals ample ammunition. European parliament member François-Xavier Bellamy of the right-wing Les Républicains party said the president was taking a “populist turn” with the CCC and said it lacked any legitimacy.

“Has representative democracy become so discredited that we now think that 150 randomly picked people working in a closed room are enough to produce propositions that truly resemble what the French people want?” he asked during an interview on Sud Radio in June 2019. “I don’t think so,” he added.

In embracing citizens’ panels, Macron has gone where previous presidents have feared to tread. He is arguably the first French leader to entrust French citizens with the serious business of policy-making – and on an issue as contentious and significant as climate change.

Unlike other citizen panels

Armel Le Coz – co-founder of Démocratie Ouverte, a French NGO that designed the protocols for the CCC – says the concept for the council was to “try to imagine a new form of deliberative democracy”.

“The citizens’ convention on climate is very different to other citizens’ panels,” Le Coz explained. “Firstly, it was overseen directly by the president. Secondly, while past governments have called for citizen participation on issues such as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), nuclear waste and vaccines, these initiatives were purely consultative and were always led by ministries or other government institutions.”

He said the CCC has demonstrated that French citizens from diverse backgrounds “are capable of articulating ambitious and realistic proposals on a complex subject with high stakes for society”. In the future, he sees citizens’ conventions becoming an everyday function of French institutions with the power to trigger referenda and legislative proposals.

And while he acknowledged some participants found fault with the process, he attributed their grievances to the fact that the CCC is chartering new political territory.

Landemore agrees that Macron took a “political risk” but says he was probably convinced of the merits of going ahead with the landmark citizens convention following the success of the country’s Great National Debate, which was launched in response to the Yellow Vest protests and included 21 citizen advisory groups.

Though the president has managed to steer the government towards an ecological course, Landemore sees challenges posed by an institutional culture with a lack of appetite for radical shifts in policy.

“The problem I see is that it’s one thing to have the discourse and ambitions, another to have the proper institutional culture to deliver. Whatever Macron’s own sincerity, there are too many people dragging their feet, rolling their eyes and pushing a different agenda.”

https://www.atoallinks.com/2021/macrons-direct-democracy-to-be-tested-as-citizens-panel-on-climate-wraps-up/