從審議民主觀點試論公民投票之程序改革

Abstract

關於公民投票所常面臨的質疑，實則真正所疑者並非公民直接參與決策，而是公民投票程序中公民知情不足和參與不足、討論的貧乏、政府主導發動與議題形成。是以提出以引進審議民主的概念為公投程序改革的方向，審議民主主張自由、平等公民，在知情充足下與他人進行公益取向的理性溝通，以求取符合共善的共識為目標，正能夠強化公民投票提升決策民主正當性、擴大公民參與、提升代議政治品質的優點，並且補足人民知情不足及參與不足、多數暴力、少數操控、弱化代議責任政治的可能缺陷。 為落實審議民主的理念，論者已提出幾項制度嘗試，雖然在定位和設計上各有不同，但其皆試圖實現審議民主互惠性、公眾性、包容性、自由、平等的理念，且皆具備公民參與、小討論規模、觀點多元、對話、平等參與等共通要素。這些制度也有調和大規模民主與審議進行、議題控制由政府移轉於人民、試圖以審議影響決策的企圖，能夠為公投如何審議帶來啟示。最後對於我國公投的制度設計，提出放寬類型和議題限制、多元提案和公民審議於成案階段的提前導入、討論階段重視對話、表決門檻以一般多數決為原則、效力為拘束性且限制代議政府事後修改、司法事後審查等。正如參與民主論者強調實踐來學習公民德性，本文期望能夠以程序設計為起點，營造社群對於公民審議決策的能力和認同。

Recommendations for Procedural Reform of Referendum: A Perspective of Deliberative Democracy Abstract Among the critiques to referendum, what is really doubted is not direct citizen decision-making, but the uninformed voters, low turnout, poor public debate, and government-dominated agenda settings. Therefore, this article suggests the ideal of deliberative democracy as the perspective of procedural reform. Deliberative democracy, which believes free and equal informed citizens, with reasonable communication in pursuit of consensus of common good, could not only be the salvation of disadvantage of referendum, but also the enhancement of its functions. Deliberative democracy could still fulfill the normative requirement of due process of law. To realize the ideal of deliberative democracy, several institutional experiments have been suggested, such as consensus conference, deliberative democracy, deliberation day ,and citizen assembly of B. C. Though there is difference, all of them try to practice the deliberative ideas of reciprocity, publicity, inclusiveness, liberty and equality. Citizen involvement, small scale discussion, diversity of view, discourses, equal participation are common characters. This experiment could give us some inspiration for how to “deliberatize” referendum procedure: the way to harmonize of large scale democracy and face-to-face deliberation, transferring agenda control to citizens, and transforming deliberation into decision making. Finally, this article makes recommendations for domestic referendum rules, including (1) lower the substantive and procedure gates ; (2) verify the tube of citizen petition and early citizen participation in the stage of ballots drafting; (3) enhance discourse in the stage of discussion; (4) general majority rule of decision making; (5) binding effects of result and limit the amendment by representative government; (6) identical judicial review standards with representative legislation; Just as participatory democracy believes developing civic virtue with enlarged participation, the article expects procedural reform, as a way of practice, could be the trigger of active citizen deliberation.