Consultare publică, instrument legitim al democrației participative
Public consultation, legitimate instrument of participative democracy

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the premise that citizens are not only rights-holders and recipients of various state actions, but active participants in public decision-making, this paper intents to demonstrate the importance of strengthening relations between authorities and citizens, through public consultation procedures. For this purpose, the paper aims to analyze the status of the current political regime, the potential of active collaboration between citizens and authorities, the legitimacy of the active involvement of citizens, as well as the opinion of experts involved in the process of public consultation and active participation, in Romania. The active relationship between authorities and citizens gives the latter a chance to learn about the government’s political plans, to make their opinions heard and to contribute to the decision-making process. This involvement creates greater acceptance of policy outcomes. The government shows openness, which makes it more trustworthy to the citizen - the sovereign of any democracy. The adjustment of the civil society to the measures proposed by the regulations is done in stages and has higher chances of acceptance on its part, and of course another dimension of this acceptance is the legitimacy that the regulation has, as long as all the interested parties are involved and agree on the common responsibility. By strengthening trust in government and better public policies, the legitimacy of all governance is enhanced. In Romania, we have a solid legal framework and a lot of democratic mechanisms, which create the possibility of society’s intervention in the decision-making process, and even the authority’s obligation to seek and ask for public consultation in this process. The participation of the general public is desirable, as can be seen from the practical side of this paper, regardless of its form. Desirable because even today, after 30 years of democracy, the biggest problem we seem to have is the lack of civic, social and political involvement of citizens.

• Details
• Contents