Johanna Sigurdardottir, Prime Minister of Iceland and leader of the Social Democrats, has told reporters she wants the President’s right to veto new acts of parliament and send them to a public referendum to be removed.
The Icelandic President is the country’s head of state and the only person with power over parliament; but Johanna Sigurdardottir said she wants the right to call a referendum to be placed directly in the hands of the public.
Current president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson has twice used his veto and is the only president to have ever done so, RUV reports.
Sigurdardottir said that her party is very enthusiastic about a bill due before parliament that would call together a constitutional parliament of citizens with the legal power to change Iceland’s constitution. She believes such a parliament should make re-evaluation of the president’s role a priority. Sigurdardottir is also in favour of the office of president having stricter rules on conduct and a clearer job description.
I cannot see this being a good thing.
The presidential authority to call a referendum has been in the constitution since the country was granted independence. In all that time parliament had never identified or written into law exactly “how” a referendum should be handled or run. It ended up being a last ditch effort to get it together. Now if this right is removed from the president and given to “the people”, I ask “how” is a referendum actually to be called? Will it take parliament another 60 years to identify the method?
I believe the call for a referendum should remain with the president, but that an additional method could also be created whereby “the people” may also call for a referendum. Given the lack of transparency and honesty that the politicians of Iceland have demonstrated in the past decade, I feel that we require twice the checks and balances that would normally be called for.
In summary, the president while a man of weak character is the only check that we currently have to hold a parliament of “cronies” from going rampant and passing “favors” weakly disguised as laws.
I’m just saying
This is nonsense…in all Deemocracies the President has the right to Veto bill’s…I agree that not everywghere he can call for a referendum, but I think a small-sized nation needs exactly thqat. Johann shows the signs of all Icelandic politicians, and that is that she is still angry about the people declining here badly made Icesave-bill…this is only about hurt feelings, as so (and too) often in Icelandic politics.
if our politicians could get finally ovethemselves, we would be better of. i think anyway we have far too many of them here. Too big parliament, too many misnisters, and if we do reform on the president, than we shoudl decide whetgher a presidential democracy would not be better for icleand than this failing and strange construciton w ehave with a Prime-Minister and a President…too much for 319000 people,in my opinion. We created a “replacement” for the King we kicked out ourselves, and so we have to live now with this situaiotn which is stopping the country from evolving.
Also, as I said ealreir, all MP’s and ministers which held minister-office or a seat in Althingi in the up-coming of the crisis should be released from office. They clearly failed and didn’t do there jobs. how any minister can say he didn’t know what was going on is beyond my undertsanding! They were memebrs of the governemnt and if the communicaiotn in the gov is so bad that they weren’t informed, they shouldn’t be a gov in the first place. Same for all MP’s… Also, no minister should be allowed to hold a seat in Parliament. the parliament is meant to controll the government…thsi can’t work if half of the government is in Parliament, meaning it controlls itself. That’s not democratic and specially in Iceland were conflict of interests are rahter the rule than the exceptoin, this should be prevented by a total reform of our political and governmental system.
Let it be clear. The president of Iceland does NOT have any sort of Veto powers at all. He can only send things to a referendum. If he sends it to a referendum the act/law is still considered valid until a negative referendum vote changes that (of course that is in the case that a referendum actually votes the law down).
Basically if you take this one thing away from the president, then we have a president that has zero power or authority. Of course at that point there is zero standing between parliament and the passing of anything they so choose. We have all seen how fast something can be pushed through parliament. The question is “What will a parliament with no controls be passing in our future?” Remember the law is valid until a referendum strikes it down. This gives plenty of time to twist and take advantage of situations.
Tim66n did write :
>Given the lack of transparency and honesty that the politicians of Iceland have demonstrated in the past decade, I feel that we require twice the checks and balances that would normally be called for.
Exactly.
Have president keep the power and also the people ( Swiss style rules ) but also have the powers and responsibility of president more clearly defined.
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of the party of centralizing powers ( Social Democrats ) did manage to make a policy idea I agree with into some thing, well, dirty sounding.
It’s a shame. The policy of adding referedum called ” by the people ” is a good one.
As to need to have president report on what he gets including in kind is well hypocritical. Because Social Democrats have you hands dirty from the corrupted EU grants you have been getting.
Let us see declarations of that from MPs if you are going to be asking the same
of president.. Other wise you just look like hypocrit.
Icelandic President to lose referendum power ? Absolutely NO. It seems not fair for Johanna Sigurdardottir – PM to say this because at the time the need to protect the interest of the people was required not even she did it. After the bank collapsed the best solution she gave, if I am not mistaken, was to load the burden to the people including unborn children or the easy way out is to joint the EEC. Was this the best solution ?
Nobody stood among them. While they were earning millions, the majority was losing jobs, homes, benefits as for students, old, sick, disabled and etc. The President’s veto with the majority who supported him was the last resort when no politician stood. The need for balance is urgent with transparency without delay.
Let us all have a new start and observe the unwritten Code of Ethics. Just look in the mirror.
If the PM wants to take this power away from the people by neutralizing the president she is first going to have to change the constitution, to make that change valid she is going to have to call for elections, the independence and progressive parties will support this because they know the social democrats and left green will be trashed in the elections, and it will end Johannas political life,
attacking the constitution and the very popular president ontop of a long list of mistakes, then going into elections aiming at EU entrence against the entire publics will while europe is on fire is idiocy that borders insanity,
it is more likely that Althing will cease to exist, along with all the political parties than the parliament would get full power over Iceland and the nation, short or long term.
i do not trust any Icelandic political party to come anywhere near the constitution, to dissolve parliament and terminate Althingi to replace it with a new form of government is a likely outcome if there is a conflict over this,
it will not surprize me if Johanna and co bankrupt Iceland in this desperate attempt to force it into the EU.
@Fisy,
Is there any evidence that the social democrats received grants from the EU? I would not be surprised about it but I have not seen evidence so far.
“As to need to have president report on what he gets including in kind is well hypocritical. Because Social Democrats have you hands dirty from the corrupted EU grants you have been getting.”
Simply you are a charlatan and a trickster, and you would have to be imputed for that reason. Rogue.
A note in afterword: The way that popular referendum works where it is implemented by law is that persons with interest to have a popular vote in regard to an issue seek support for their desire and present their evidence of that support, usually through gathering names from persons willing to attest over their signatures that they, too, desire to have opportunity to vote about the issue.
In the recent Icelandic case citizens were expressing their desires to vote in regard to the issue from the moment the bill was passed in parliament. The president did not encourage the expression, he merely allowed additional time for the expression, during which time the popular call for referendum of the bill grew, and grew, and grew.
The PM voiced opposition to allowing the people the voice they demanded, and when the president granted the people the opportunity to express themselves she went into a pet. Then, when the referendum was carried through and to the vote, she refused to exercise her franchise to express her view at the polls along with them.
The course of the recent events indicates that Iceland has popular referendum already, but that it has it only so long as the office of president is held by a person who respects the principles of popular democracy embedded in the Icelandic constitution and that popular democracy depends on.
This shows the danger of the present system in Iceland: If a person without respect for the principle the constitution was written to uphold should hold the office of president when a question such as the recent one arises, the people’s constitutional right to popular referendum may be denied them. Had, for example, the PM, with her agenda and lack of respect for democratic process, been the president during the recent events the bill would have been signed the moment it arrived on the president’s desk, damn the people, their voices or their rights written in the constitution.
Fisy says:
“Have president keep the power and also the people ( Swiss style rules ) but also have the powers and responsibility of president more clearly defined.”
Nice in theory but Iceland has more of a Mafia family rule aspect to it doesn’t it? Where a individual can be placed in a position of power by a political power to over rule the democratically elected government when it sees the potential to get what it wants though mischief and not democracy.