Description
A local referendum is a process that institutes a direct law execution and constitutes a form of a direct democracy. Moreover, via referendum the public will is being implemented by imminent individuals and these via this process do adress a wide range of village, town or district on matters of local government. Not only for above mentioned reasons, the local referendum represents an indisputable role in local decision making process. On the other hand, with the acknowledgement of this process there concurrently do occur controversial issues caused mainly by local governments. This project therefore seeks to provide an effective solutions for active citizens to overcome these problems through workshops, "Local Referendum Step by Step" guide, 2014 local referenda analysis, discussion platforms in order to exchange information, skills and experiences and interconnect active citizens in general. The central theme and the final objective is to reinforce citizen involvement in decision making process that directly refer to these individuals.
Summary of project results
In 2014 a local referendum was held in 47 Czech cities. It is the most since the law came into effect, which proves the public's rising interest in local affairs. But at the same time, this record-breaking year also pointed out the main problems with organizing local referendums, because a half of them ended invalid. As one of the best tools against corruption is a well informed and engaged citizen, the main goal of this project was to raise awareness about local referendum and give practical advice on organizing it to those, who are not indifferent to the future of their municipality. The two main outputs of the project are the Analysis of Local Referendums 2014 and „A Local Referendum Cookbook – Guide for Active Citizens“. The Analysis represents an unique set of present knowledge, legal aspects and statistics of all 47 referendums from 2014. The Cookbook is a step by step guide for every future referendum organiser. It includes practical instructions on referendum organizing, examples and standards of all the formal documents and letters that are needed and finally valuable insights and recommendations from experienced organizers. Important networks and closer cooperation between active local citizens and experienced organizers from previous years was established and their experience propagated further, particularly through the workshops in Prague, Pardubice and Ostrava. The project also opened public discussion on possible changes in the law on local referendum, aiming to avoid the most common problems encountered by the referendums‘ organizers, and subsequently the causes for the referendums to end invalid.
Summary of bilateral results