Give us a present to 20^th anniversary

“Give us a present to 20^th anniversary” is the title of a student appeal aimed at politicians. It was published on 17^th November 2008. We ask politicians to give us, citizens, a little 20^th anniversary present – to make right four legislative absurdities, which lower the quality of our democratic culture. Among these we count:

• extended MPs’ immunity, whose extent is unique in Europe
• practice of legislative amendments and MPs’ “creativity” that brings in disorder and confusion in our laws
• unregulated lobbing, which is checked by no-one, and therefore creates an ideal breeding ground for bribery and dishonest political deals
• the way the media councils are filled – members of these councils that are supposed to guard independence and quality of our media are chosen on the basis of political agreements and party interests

Our initiative does not end with an appeal. We make an effort to push our proposals through. We pay politicians visits with a camera, and try to persuade them to press our suggestions. You can see their reactions in the Meetings with politicians section.

The text of the appeal was phrased as a student opinion that should not restrict itself to a critical description of the present time, but should also bring concrete suggestions to change our democracy for the better. Why is it that at the time of our EU presidency and dealing with the recession, and when we still have not done even the most essential reforms, we persist on solving these 4 problems in particular? We are convinced that it is not possible to separate the quality of democratic culture from the quality of decisions our politicians make. We believe that we cannot count on the matters being improved after we have solved our contemporary problems. In our opinion, it should be done the other way round: as long as politicians are permanently suspected of corruption and promoting their personal or party interests instead of the public ones, as long as they try to evade public supervision, and give way to power politics, we cannot hope for their thought-out, qualified and responsible decisions.

We chose 4 problems that influence the quality of our democracy. According to us, it means they are of the same importance as the necessary reforms and other thorny issues. Moreover, we tried to choose topics that are not ideological, and therefore cannot become the bone of contention between different political fractions. We hope we do not ask too much from our politicians when we say:

Give us a present to 20^th anniversary.