I'm overjoyed to learn that the French electorate has done the right thing by rejecting the monstrosity of a constitution their political class tried so hard to cajole them into endorsing, albeit for the wrong reasons (if only it really were an "ultra-liberal" treaty!).
France's voters last night decisively rejected the new European constitution, plunging the country into political upheaval and the EU into the deepest crisis in its 50-year history.
The outcome also prompted immediate speculation in London that Britain's planned referendum on the treaty was now pointless.
With all of the votes counted last night, France's interior ministry put the no vote at 54.87%. Overall turnout was forecast to be around 70%.
Now I can sit back in the pleasant expectation that the Dutch will soon deliver the final blow to the impenetrable 448-page doorstop through which the advocates of "ever-closer union" were hoping to secure ever greater powers for themselves at the expense of the electorates of Europe's nations. The sky will not fall simply because the EU has to pause for a while with its centralizing tendencies.
PS: In related news, does the following come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the Europhile mindset?
Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and rotating president of the EU, said last week that, even in the event of a French and Dutch No, EU nations should continue putting the treaty to votes until they gave the "right answer". But in Paris such talk was angrily rejected as an affront to democracy. Paul El Sair, a 72-year-old junk dealer and staunch opponent of the constitution, said: "People are saying that we must vote again if we vote No. You must be joking."
Mais non, Mr. Sair, I assure you that he definitely is not joking: just ask the Irish.
It was a mistake to have a referendum in the first place. They only get abused for all the wrong political reasons, i.e. Chirac's growing unpopularity. If you have elected representatives, that means you give them the power to decide on these matters. In countries that do not have a constitutional tradition mixing representation and referenda, this results in a mess, as we see here.
I will not discard the European Constitution, simply because of the heavy criticism (I wonder if the critics also bothered to read it). Up until I now, I have not read it, so I will defer from stating an opinion (something I would advise to others). I do know that it replaces a number of consisting treaties, so it can't be all that bad.
As a student of law, I know that legalese is difficult to understand. Legal texts should be more transparent, undoubtedly. But that does not make for a bad constitution (on its own).
Posted by: William | May 31, 2005 at 09:27 AM
Constitutions, of all documents, should be written for the layman not the lawyer. The US Constitution succeeds brilliantly at this. One advantage is that any reader can see when the Supreme Court applies the Constitution and when it ignores it and simply applies the whims of the Justices. Handy, that.
Posted by: dearieme | May 31, 2005 at 11:51 AM
"I will not discard the European Constitution, simply because of the heavy criticism (I wonder if the critics also bothered to read it). Up until I now, I have not read it, so I will defer from stating an opinion (something I would advise to others). I do know that it replaces a number of consisting treaties, so it can't be all that bad."
You do not have to read a constitution with that many articles to know there are structural problems with it. You really don't need to know anything more about it. Several US states have the same kind laundry list constitutions and they are embarrassments.
And dearieme is right in pointing out that a basic law needs ot be rewritten in layman's language or else it is not really democratic. Legalese is acceptable as a technical jargon for laws that are technical in nature, but a constituiton is a political document and it has to be open and available to the general public. Legalese by itself does in fact make for a bad constitution, unless the standard of legitimacy is something other than having us common folk knowing how their government is set up.
Posted by: Jim | May 31, 2005 at 05:34 PM
Let me second what both Dearieme and Jim have said. For an example of a constitution done (almost) right, might I humbly suggest taking a look at the following document?
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
If I have any reservations with the example above, it is that the authors failed to institute sufficiently stringent safeguards in favor of private property and against federal power-grabbing - which only goes to show how hard it is to forsee what wilful misinterpretations may yet spring from even the most limpid language. With a constitution as prolix and chock-full of addled legalese as the one our masters in Brussels would have forced down our throats, there's hardly any mischief under the sun that wouldn't be possible.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite | May 31, 2005 at 10:56 PM
Does anyone know if the flaw Goedel believed he had found in the US constitution really was a flaw, & if so what it was?
Posted by: Delmore Macnamara | June 01, 2005 at 07:34 AM
dELMORE: NO PROPER WAY OF KEEPING THE jUSTICES TO THEIR OATHS?
Posted by: dearieme | June 01, 2005 at 11:11 AM
"If I have any reservations with the example above, it is that the authors failed to institute sufficiently stringent safeguards in favor of private property and against federal power-grabbing..."
Those are examples of the two main flaws in the EU Constitution. A constitution should lay out procedures for governing rather than fossilize policies. Of course at some point a policy becomes procedural if it is locked into place, but there is a functional difference. Sanctitu fo private property is an example of a constitutional principle that can be seen as a policy matter. Anyway, it's crucial to individual rights, and that is a procedural matter.
The second big problem has to do with limiting the power of government. Federal power-grabbing is a big problem here in the US even with safeguards in place; how much more of a problem would it be with none in place? Voters on with the full right-wing to left-wing spectrum of reasons to vote no all said they thought the EU Constituiton was too undemocratic. No one can quibble with that. This constituiton provids for a weak legislature, and a weak judiciary and allows for a tyrannical executicve branch in the form of an almost completely unaccountable federal bureacracy.
Ivan's concern about referenda is well-placed., but they have their place. many states in the US provide forreferenda to be part of genenral elections, and it can be a useful option. It's a balancing act really, because referenda are a very blunt instrument for making policy, but sometimes destruction and chaos are better than a corrupt system.
Posted by: Jim | June 02, 2005 at 04:28 PM
Speaking of separation of powers and so forth, some people might find the following two links interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4603883.stm
http://etienne.chouard.free.fr/Europe/
It appears that French opposition to the constitution wasn't as alien to the "Anglo-Saxon" mind as the papers make out. Many of Etienne Chouard's objections seem eminently sensible to me.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite | June 02, 2005 at 04:41 PM
Funny how Etienne Chouard's website has a translation in Esperanto but not in English! I'll make do with Google which has translated "professeur de droit" into "professor of right"...
Posted by: Andrew | June 02, 2005 at 06:20 PM