The e-petition service of the 10 Downing Street passed two millions of signatures. Created in November 2006, in partnership with the association “My Society”, the system allows any citizen to address, to sign and to send a petition directly to the Prime Minister. But the system is getting discussed.
Nearly 3.000 petitions were sent to 10 Downing Street in three months and nearly 2 millions of signatures were recorded in mid-February.
The most popular petition relates to a project aiming reducing the difficulties of circulation and at founding tolls on the most attended roads. It is the subject currently of a controversy, causing even the irritation of members of the government. A minister wishing to preserve anonymity would have thus said, according to the BBC, that “Online petitions were a disaster for public relations”, being astonished that this question causes as much signature whereas the surveys never presented it like priority. “Petitions are not meant to be representative of the country like an opinion poll, they just indicate what one group of people think on a subject” said Mr. Steinberg, creator of the website.
Minister for Transport denounced the untruths which were presented in the petition, indicating that it would share concerns of the petitioners if its contents were in conformity with reality, which is not the case: “The idea that each driver should pay more is quite simply false”.
It is the principle of e-petition which is blamed. If it appears logical that Internet facilitates the standpoint, that principle of petition privileges oppositions rather than proposals, that initiatives can be coordinated by well organized groups, that opponents express themselves more naturally than partisans of a project, which weight to give him? Petition must be interpreted in the more global context of “political decision-making” answers the spokesman of the British government.
Read the official answer signed by Tony Blair.
The British system should be inspired by the system set by the Scottish Parliament: a petition which had a given number in advance of signatures, according to transparent conditions’, must be subjected to parliamentary debate. The petition thus fits in a clear democratic process.
Whereas in France, NetPolitique website sensitizes presidential candidates on this question, the e-petition discussion can well illustrate a more global discussion on the participative democracy.
See also:
"Petition, a good example of participative democraty"
"The German Bundestag adopts the scottish e-petition"
"E-petitions authorized in French National Assembly?"
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