Příspěvek Marie Jílkové na konferenci "Demokracie v Evropě"
Demokracie - co přesně jí rozumíme, chápeme tento pojem všichni stejně, jak funguje v různých evropských státech?
Toto byly jen příklady otázek, na něž hledalo odpověď valné shromáždění Andante, evropská aliance katolických ženských organizací 15.-18. dubna ve Štrasburku na své výroční konferenci.
Přinášíme vám příspěvek Marie Jílkové na této konferenci, na které vystoupily političky z evropských zemí - Gret Haller, bývalá předsedkyně švýcarského parlamentu, Mária Demeterová, bývalá poslanykně slovenské Národní rady, Ingrid Fischbach, poslanykně německého Budnestagu a další.
Democracy – what does that mean in Czech Republic?
What do people in your country understand by the term “democracy”?
The term “democracy” varies a lot among people – democracy can be seen as an expression of freedom; democracy is an opportunity to travel; democracy is understood as a freedom of choice. Simply – democracy in general is now perceived as a variation of freedom. In my opinion, recently we see the core of democracy only in this freedom-dimension as it were the only face of democracy. This can be caused by lack of freedom/democracy in the late period of communist time in Czech Republic. Experiencing democracy for longer period can bring us to deeper understanding complexity of democracy – including a civil society, human rights, higher level of political culture etc.
How much value is attached to the constitution in your country?
This question must be addressed both to citizens and politicians.
Citizens consider the Constitution as the highest legal institution, the Constitutional court is mainly considered as the most credible institution among others. It is usual to end complicated citizens´ lawsuits by appeal to Constitutional court.
On the contrary, politicians have shown no respect to legal principles established by Constitution lately. The Constitution is in political debates a favourite subject to questioning, accused of rigidity which leads consequently to tendency change the principles on purpose.
Last year we experienced such an attempt to single-change Constitution by design to dissolve Parliament more easily – The Constitutional court rejected the term of elections just one month before they were supposed to happen. The political representation was shocked and not very respectful. Later on, the Parliament changed the Constitution again but respecting the legal minimum as set by the Constitutional Court.
In general, the Constitution is not a subject of frequent changes, the main amendment of the Constitution has been passed in 2004, in the context of EU accession. The mechanism of Constitution change is difficult and it needs a broad political consensus.
What exactly, in the view of people in your country, is the position and the task of the Parliament?
The credibility of Parliament is now on the lowest level in a long-time perspective – now it is about 15% comparing to 65% for president for example.
Citizens view on Parliament is affected by unclear majority (last elections gave 100 mandates to the left, 100 mandates to the right). It led to unpredictable jumps of individual MPs to one or to the other side. People think that the only reason for MPs to be MP is to get as much as possible benefits, posts and enjoy their mandates regardless of citizen’s interests.
Has your country a president? If so, how important is his/her function in the popular view? Has your country a king or queen? If so, what is his or her significance for most people?
President traditionally enjoys high credibility of citizens (about 60-70%). His role in political system is more symbolical than powerful. In modern history we experienced only two presidents – Vaclav Havel and his opponent Vaclav Klaus. Both are very strong personalities trying to get as much as possible from their symbolical position. Both are exceptional and at the same time they are very different, but have the ability to polarise society.
Does your country know procedures of direct representation, such as e.g. the referendum?
Referendum is formally based in the Constitution, in reality it is still not a common part of our legal system; we still miss the implementing law which has not been passed for politicians’ reluctance against this kind of this institute of direct democracy.
There was only one national referendum on EU accession and it has been accepted ad hoc. On the local level there is a referendum obliging the local council only if more than 50% citizens participate.
Which ways are available in your country for people who want to promote new ideas or to change something in society?
The official (and broadly recommended) way is to enter political party and work on to get as high as possible in party hierarchy. This way of changing society is very slow, exhausting and often ineffective.
The most usual way is to run for elections as an independent candidate (in local and Senate elections). This way enables individualities to get positions directly without bothering with party-politics. This feature however causes instability in the political system because predictability disapears and ad-hoc coalitions have to be created in order to reach consensus on every single matter.
In my opinion the main and easy promoter of changes should be the civil society. The role of this institution (if it ever can be called an institution) is underestimated due to numerous profanations of current president Vaclav Klaus. In his view political life and expression of political will happens only through political parties and civil society is considered to be “something” unregulated, spontaneous and uncontrolled and therefore harmful. Civil society, in his view, has no right to promote any changes due to missing legitimacy from the voters. This is the basic distinction between him and Vaclav Havel – the previous president.
In what ways women in your country asserted themselves in order to get their aims with respect to equal rights legally anchored? How are they acting nowadays?
Thanks God, in our history there was s very long and successful story of women’s movement. We can thank president Masaryk and his followers’ effort in the 20´ in promotion women rights i.e. education, equal legal status of women and so on. Their positive approach caused quite easy acceptance of women rights later in the 90´ when we started to rebuild democratic institutions again. The main task for our first president in modern history - Vaclav Havel - was to rehabilitate/transform communist conception of equal rights to western standards.
- Equal rights were in the 70´s and the 80´ were a synonym to full employment without possibility to choose life-career on its own. EU accession was a chance to implement standards of equal opportunities to Czech law system nevertheless we seem not to know how to cope with this challenge.
- Although to the west from our frontiers women had evolved and experienced various periods of emancipation, in our society the issue was taboo. Until nowadays the term “feminism” has really negative connotations and is neglected by the majority. Feminism is even considered to be an extremist movement by majority.
This caused our persisting troubles opening public discussion on women’s issue, implementing quotas and other measures helping women to participate better and all these effects have to be taken into account if considering carrier, self-esteem and participation of Czech women.
Big obstacle in promoting equal rights for men and women is also seen in too formal and stubborn interpretation of legal acts contrary to intention of these acts. On the other hand, despite the fact that equality is legally settled, the reality itself does not reflect letter of the law. The reasons vary from laziness to ignorance... Current legislation acknowledges equal rights to men and women. Equality exists de jure and is undisputable. However, even if the minimum standard is set, it doesn’t automatically mean the equality in fact.
The argument of legal equality is often misused by critics of concept of equal opportunities and from their point of view is considered to be the final objective.
How democratic do you judge your country to be? Could you identify particular shortcomings? Are there elements that you would value positively?
According to the Map of Freedom 2009 done by Freedomhouse, Czech Republic scored 1 in both the categories, political rights as well as civil liberties, and is considered a free country, i.e. democratic. However, if I were to judge democracy in the Czech Republic, I would not be so positive if functioning of democracy would be assessed.
If ideal democracy would be composed of four components – (1) free and fair elections, (2) civil and political rights, (3) democratic (civil) society, and (4) open and accountable government - as defined by Weir and Beetham (1999), one could conclude that Czech Republic has solid foundations but the whole building has not been finished as yet. Especially the last two points need to be improved a lot.
Štrasburk
Pár fotografií z nedobrovolně prodlouženého výjezdu na konferenci Andante. Nakonec to byl velmi přijemně strávený víkend, navzdory výbuchu sopky na Islandu.