engleski

The Council of Europe as a Promoter of Local Democracy: Regulation of Citizens’ Public Participation

Citizen participation in activities of the public authorities and administrative bodies is condition sine qua non of every democratic system of government. Transparency, openness, and participation are the key standards in ensuring the efficiency of public policies, quality of decision-making process, legitimacy of decisions, and also the strengthening of the citizens' trust in public and political institutions. The participation has to be guaranteed on every level of governance. However, in respect of the principle of subsidiarity, it can be the most directly exercised on the local level. The above presented theoretical framework raises two research questions: (1) What are the possible instruments for citizen participation in local governance and ways to strengthen local democracy? (2) Is the concept of participatory governance practiced in Croatia? In an attempt to provide answers to the research questions, the author used the legal analysis and the teleological and linguistic method. By analyzing European legal documents (with an emphasis on the Council of Europe as a leading institution in the regulation of local democracy), we were able to identify the main principles and standards for citizen participation that European states need to promote and regulate: representative democracy, direct democracy, participation of the OCD, new ICT (for strengthening participative practices), and engagement of specific groups of citizens (women, young people, national minorities, foreigners, persons with disabilities). The Croatian legislation envisages a large number of civil participation instruments, but in a rather segmented manner, in a number of specific laws. Therefore, Croatia is yet to accede to Protocol no. 207 with the revision of the fundamental law on local self-government to establish participatory practices.

Council of Europe, local democracy, participative governance, women, young people, national minorities, persons with disabilities

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