Whose justice?
Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner seems like a funny guy – especially for a justice minister, at least in a country that is fortunate enough to have a constitution.
Donner believes that if, some time in the future, two-thirds of Dutch citizens believe that Sharia, Islamic law, should be introduced in the Netherlands, then it must be allowed. That, says the minister, is the ultimate consequence of democracy…The minister’s remarks have caused uproar in parliament. His own Christian Democrat [sic] party is astonished…The largest Dutch party, the opposition Labour Party, also thinks the justice minister is on the wrong track. Labour point out that, in their view, Sharia is in conflict with the Dutch constitution on a number of points. For example, it could never be officially possible to discriminate against women or homosexuals.
Well, there you are. It’s rather basic. Democracy in the form of simple majoritarianism always carries the risk that a majority will decide (vote, want, choose) to persecute a minority or even (in the case of women) a majority, and that’s why farsighted people decided constitutions were a good idea. People aren’t nice, in fact people are crap, so pure majoritarian unhedged democracy is a terrible, terrible idea.
(And by the way, why is Radio Netherlands talking about the Christian Democrat party? Surely they haven’t picked up that rude habit of US Republicans of refusing to say ‘Democratic’ party or candidate because it sounds too complimentary…but why else would they be doing it? That’s not standard usage. I’ve noticed the World Service doing it lately, too, to my deep fury, but I’m astonished to see it’s made its way to the Continent. Christian Democratic party. Cut it out.)
You’re right on about this issue as usual. It’s comforting to know that human rights in the Netherlands will be protected until a majority wants to do away with them. Fortunately Mr. Donner will most likely not be in office for long after the November elections.
Oh – just reading that there will be an urgent debate in parliament about Donner’s claims, and Wilders, who is a creep but who is right on this issue in the same way a broken clock might be twice a day, may make a motion against him. I doubt anything will happen though. Unless parliament decides to preventatively introduce Shari’a law. Nothing surprises me much these days.
There’s no need to worry about theocracy by stealth: there are a number of parties in Europe officially called Christian Democratic parties or unions, which have been around for decades. The Netherlands has one, and Germany is currently governed by its own Christian Democratic Union under Angela Merkle. I remember when her predecessor Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of Germany in the eighties that he was often described as leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats on the BBC. If the World Service has only recently done the same, then it’s just catching up .
No, the BBC correctly described the party of Konrad Adenauer as Christian Democrats since he nacame the BRD’s first Chancellor. This is nothing new.
Wake up at the back there!
The last para takes a cooler position: “While he argues in his book that discussions about Islam in the Netherlands get far too heated, he has achieved the exact opposite. He has not contributed constructively to public debate and has landed the Christian Democrat party in some electoral difficulties.”
Well, if there were enough of the population to win a referendum, say, on amending the constitution…wouldn’t be much anyone could do about that, surely?
Mind you, a written constitution would be a truly lovely thing to have here in the UK…how about a republic, hmm? It’s about time we gave up the monarchistic nonsense, really, now isn’t it? But then, both here and the USA could do with having genuine “democracy” as well…which would possibly be the greatest safeguard against extremism.
“First-past-the-post” voting systems are archaic, unrepresentative, and in the UK tend to lead to minority rule – all hail T.B. with his amazing 35% of votes cast in 2005! (hell, the best The Maggon ever achieved was 43%, in 1979)
That’s not even taking into account proportion of the electorate, which is even lower…
At least here in Scotland we have a form (albeit a poor one) of proportional representation. What I’d like to see is a move to STV – Single Transferrable Vote is still the best available system, utilising multi-member constituencies.
There would be greater representation of minority parties (yes, including the BNP, Theocratic Parties, etc, but that IS democracy…), but it would take far more supernaturalists to club together to get a single theocracy-of-choice in majority power.
Trouble is, it scares the pants off incumbents/those that profit from f-p-t-p, so we won’t be getting it any time soon.
Still, at least we don’t have an electoral college! :-)
Anyone who isn’t aware of STV, wants democracy, etc (or, indeed, is ignorant enough to be happy with the status quo), please head to:
http://www.fairsharevoting.org
For further info.
It doesn’t seem controversial to me that if you have a big enough majority of people who want X, then they will lawfully be able to get it eventually; constitutions can be amended, referenda passed, new governments elected and so forth. Short of imposing a dictatorship or somehow declaring that certain laws are like the laws of the Medes and the Persians and cannot be changed, there’s not much you can do about that. (And even if you do declare that laws can’t be changed, how are you going to stop them being changed?)
What about protecting minority rights, and not the brutish will of majority ?
But the argument is probably a bit of a non-runner as Radio Clogg says later on…
If two-thirds of an electorate are united behind a political initiative, they are pretty likely to get it, constitution or no constitution. It does seem, however, that this chap has fallen for a jihadist line that relies on a] Muslim women continuing to have babies like shelling peas; and b] all those babies being successfully raised as Islamic dogmatists, for about the next 100 years. Can’t see it myself, ‘Eurabia’ hysteria notwithstanding.
I don’t know… I’m a fan of Benjamin Franklin’s statement that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” I think basic rights and freedoms should be pretty much untouchable to the will of the majority. But I guess that means I am not a democrat.
It is horribly easy for an autocrat to demolish freedoms once he has the levers of power in his hands.
The example of Weimar Germany is still before us, and Adolf didn’t even have a majority, but his opponents sat around until it was too late.
I notice the usual irrelevancies about a “republic” being somehow “better” have crept in.
Will someone please show how a republic would be better?
Does that mean we get a president, just like G. W. Shrub, or J. Chirac? Or perhaps a complete nonentity, whom no-one has ever heard of like whoever is president of Germany right now?
I suggest that people case to look at the outward form, and examine how the government really works … a second updating of Bagheot would be a good thing, perhaps.
Of course, if a big enough majority wants to amend the constitution it will probably happen; but that’s not automatically something to rejoice at. Anyway Donner’s view seems to discount the whole idea that a constitution ever ought to thwart majority will – which is bizarre coming from a jurist.
His party swung to the other extreme today and moved for banning any political group who wants to overthrow the current judicial system/advocates changes that would currently be criminal, etc. Which not only creates unclarity about the difference between changing laws (common in democracies), changing constitutions (uncommon, but happens) and ditching fundamental human rights (hopefully reason for armed UN intervention if it happens) – but it also conflates advocating something and actually doing it. People may _advocate_ Shari’a all they want as far as I am concerned but I’d probably start looking for weapons/passports/airplane tickets as soon as they get a chance to implement their desires.
Personally, I think there’s an absolutely stunning level of rank amateurism in Dutch politics today. Parties feel they lost the connection to the “street” and try to desperately regain it by blurting out various kinds of utter nonsense.
Tingey – nothing irrelevant about dragging in the concept of a republic. We don’t have a written constitution, I think it’s about bloody time we had one, and while we’re at it, let’s remedy the anachronistic “subject of the crown” business.
And yes, a president is ALWAYS better (in a proportionally representative democracy), because if you don’t like them , you can mobilise a vote against them and chuck them out! (well, dur…)
Plus you can term-limit them.
Far superior to some nonsensical “ruler by birthright”. I mean, c’mon, how can you (of all people) be comfortable with that “Defender of the (word “the” to be deleted if big-lugs ever gets to the throne) Faith”, head of the church of england = head of state irrationalism??
I don’t care who we would elect president – the old Windsors could stand, Robbie Williams, hell…Anne Widdicombe! :-)
The most important thing is that they are limited, removable, and fully bound by law (none of those Berlusconi-style “premiers are above the law” shenanigans).
Besides, tahat was only a subsidiary issue – my main thrust (oo-er missus) was that proportional representation (by STV, of course) would be the first step in protecting us from political supernaturalists. It would have prevented TB taking us into Iraq, for starters…
Remember the Muslim catchphrase in Algeria “one person – one vote – once”.
For what it’s worth, Piet Hein Donner just resigned. The reason is a fire in a penitentiary complex at Schiphol Airport which killed eleven people last year: a report concluded that safety measures were severely lacking.
Argh. Shades of the prisoners trapped during Katrina.
Thanks for the news.