Icelanders Overthrow Government and Rewrite Constitution After Banking Fraud-No Word From US Media

[pampango]

31. Unfortunately, that constitution has not yet been adopted in Iceland.

In spite of clear popular support, Iceland's new crowd-sourced constitution was recently killed by politicians. An ex-member of the constitutional council sheds some light on what happened - and why there might still be some hope for this unique experiment.

Nevertheless, the referendum was delayed until October 2012. Voter turnout was 49 percent. No less than 67 percent of the electorate declared their support for the bill as well as for its key individual provisions such as national ownership of natural resources (83 percent said Yes) and equal voting rights, meaning one person, one vote (67 percent said Yes). By inviting the voters to accept or reject the bill in toto (specifically, the first question on the ballot was: “Do you want the proposals of the Constitutional Council to form the basis of a legislative bill for a new Constitution?&quot as well as its key individual provisions, the parliamentary majority was able to say to the bill’s opponents: Look, the voters support both the bill as a whole and its key provisions. In view of the results, parliament decided to suggest only changes of wording where considered necessary and to abstain from substantive changes (except concerning the church where the voters did not accept the formulation in the bill). The people had spoken.

Further obstacles

The path forward, however, proved tricky. Three of the seven members of the constitutional committee which had been fairly unanimous in its work criticized the bill, unmoved by the result of the referendum, conducting themselves ex post like agents of the parliamentary opposition to the bill. The majority of four is known to support the bill and to respect the result of the referendum. A committee of lawyers asked by parliament to suggest only changes of wording went beyond its mandate by, among other things, suggesting substantive changes to the natural resource clause in a poorly disguised attempt to thwart the intent of the constitutional council and the will of the voters as expressed in the referendum. The council had made it clear in its proposed constitutional provision as well as in its supporting documents that the allocation of fishing quotas does not bestow on the recipients of such allocations any private property rights to the common-property resources. To its credit, the parliamentary committee in charge restored the council’s original formulation.

One day, most probably, the constitutional bill approved by the people of Iceland in the 2012 referendum or a similar one will become the law of the land. Stay tuned.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/thorvaldur-gylfason/democracy-on-ice-post-mortem-of-icelandic-constitution