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The e-Democracy in Romania | Civic Europe
Social inclusion

The e-Democracy in Romania

Let's give legislative power to online initiatives and petitions

Creators

Who is behind this?

Darius Salaci

After Party Romania

Romania

Idea

Idea pitch

Democracy in the century of speed - everything is a click away. Why not the legislative proposals? We want to collect 100,000 signatures on paper to change the legislative process for citizens 'legislative initiatives to allow citizens' legislative initiatives to be initiated online. To change the law, a minimum of 5,000 signatures on paper from at least a quarter of Romania's counties is needed.

Where will your project idea take place?

Our project is nation wide because it is an online solution for the broken civil legislative process

What is the specific societal challenge faced by this region?

Hundreds of thousands of citizens or minorities involved in society who are signatories to online petitions deserve to be rewarded. Their time, their struggles for different causes deserve to be heard in Parliament and not just on a symbolic level. The petitioners should have the right to support their project in Parliament, and parliamentarians should be obliged to debate citizens' proposals. Any Romanian citizen, regarding if he is a minority or not, who wants to adopt certain laws must have the chance to be heard more easily. Having the e-initiative will be much more involved in the legislative process, and the result is a more educated, more active people and a better connoisseur of their rights.

Who are you doing it for?

Through our project, the voices of minorities will be heard if their legislative initiative gathers 100,000 signatures online. The main beneficiaries of this project are those that the current legislation neglects and does not offer them the necessary rights and laws. Here we can mention people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, people in the Diaspora, etc. For these people can be very difficult to associate to collect 100,000 physical signatures to initiate legislative projects given that they are spread throughout Romania or the diaspora. Our project can help them gather those necessary signatures online and submit the project to Parliament.

How do you plan to get there?

We want to implement the project in 3 stages: Stage 1 - reach min. 100000 signatures. We will contact all our acquaintances from the facebook, whatsapp and phone book lists to inform them of our project and to ask them to sign both the online petition and the amendment of the legislative initiative. we will ask them to share our project on social media and to bring us at least two more signatures each. We will contact NGOs and influencers to support our cause. We will contact the media and journalists. Stage 2 - contacting the parliamentarians from our county to popularize among the political parties and hopefully they will propose it in the parliament, in stage 3 we will support the project in the committees of the Parliament and in stage 4 we will enjoy the adoption of the legislative

What are the expected results?

If our idea is selected, in a year the democracy in Romania will have a new voice. A voice neglected for generations, the voice of civil society. By providing the ability to organize and propose laws without the direct intervention of parliamentarians, civil society will gain courage and more and more people will feel the need to be heard. For us, success means knowing that minorities and those who have a project that improves the quality of life can promote it at local, regional or national level. The most difficult thing to achieve for us is to break the barrier of mentality that a small group of people cannot have an impact. But we are convinced that we will succeed regardless of whether our idea is selected or not.

How does your idea strengthen active citizenship at a local and community level?

Citizens are the supreme power in a state and there needs to be as direct and easy communication as possible between them and the government. It is essential to solve their current needs and not to wait another 4 years until they vote for another government program that promises to solve them. Governments must constantly listen and act according to the interests of the citizens they represent, and online petitions are the fastest and most direct form of communication. On the other hand, there are a series of constraints imposed by the socio-demographic reality: for example, the considerable number of Romanian citizens outside Romania's borders makes them relatively inaccessible to the current form of legislative initiative.

Why is this idea important to you?

Since 2014, online petitions have been initiated in Romania on various causes (from causes of social inclusion, environmental protection, stopping deforestation, animal protection, rights for minorities, stopping abuses, etc.). But these petitions always ended with a large number of signatures and ... that's about it. The pressure on the authorities has never been high enough to have an impact and far too few times have they changed anything. For this reason, the only chance we have left is to offer legislative power to petitions. Romanian legislation offers the right of citizens to amend or enact laws, but the process is almost impossible. Through our project and the possibility to collect signatures online, we will provide legislative power to all petitions.

€ 93720,-

Total budget

€ 50000,-

Funding requested from Civic Europe

Major expenses

Marketing - 800euros/monthx24 => 19200euros
Personnel costs - 2000e/month x24=> 48000euros
Protocol - 500e/month x24 => 12000euros
Office expenses - 250e/month x24 => 6000
Total = 85200 euros + 10% other expenses = 93720 euros
We want to gather the rest of the money from volunteers or other partners in order to succed. Being a Nation Wide program it will be more easy to obtain the money once the project is launched.

What do you need from the Civic Europe community?

I would like to know from the Civic Europe community what laws they would propose if they had the opportunity in the communities they come from and how they would improve our project.

Team

darius.salaci

Pop Irina Maria

nihilistuldeserviciu

vlad_dna

comenziconenzi

Idea created on May 26, 2020
Last edit on May 27, 2020

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