Should pre-election promises be legally binding?

JimiTime

Well, should they? I find it most convenient that opposition parties can simply say after election 'Well we didn't have access to all the data' etc. Would it be plausible to have a system where they actually did have access to any data required so that their pre-election manifesto was a legally binding document. This would also mean socialist-style parties would not be able to promise things they couldn't deliver. A consaquence of non-delivery is expulsion from government as they gained power under false pretences etc.

i mean, it just seems ridiculous that we can have pre-election promises made and then just not followed through with. i mean, they get votes based on their promises in many cases. Its like buying a Playstation 3, then getting home and opening the box, only to discover that the box was only to entice you, and that theres a sega megadrive in the box.

Surely such a move can only be good for democracy, and give us confidence in politicians word?

Obviously my 'proposal' is a bit raw in detail, but you know what I'm getting at.

EDIT: Just to ad, is there a reason why this should not, or could not be done?

anymore

I suggest that all parties such have to submit thier manifestos for independent scrutiny in the same way as the National Development plans have to be vetted. Time may be a factor as far as in depth analysis is concerned but some vetting should be mandatory. In the case of the winning partyy/ies thier manifestos should be subject to analysis and assessment say two years after gaining office. The assessments should be entered as part of the Dail records and time should be allocated in the Dail calendar far a mandatory debate with attendance for TDs compulsory.
Good thread Jimmi !

FreudianSlippers

The problem is that parties in opposition say what they think the people want them to say and many times they don't know the full story.
Then, when they get in government, they find out that their hands are tied.

I think the case in point here is that FG made promises they were negligent as to whether or not they could ACTUALLY follow through with.

Boulevardier

Yes, I have thought so for a long time.

We could bring in a system where parties could "register" specific promises with a section of the High Court. These could only be specific promises, e.g not to close Roscommon A&E; vaguer promises like "ending unemployment" would not qualify.

The leader of a party which signed up to such pledges would be ineligible to serve in government if his/her party were found by the court to have failed to deliver on any such promise.

RichardAnd

Does anyone remember this? Enda's contract for Ireland back in 07

• Free health insurance for children under 16.
  
• Free GP care for children under 5.
  
• 2,300 more hospital beds (as agreed with Labour here)
  
• 2,000 extra gardai
  
• Tougher sentences for criminals.
  
• 6)A years free pre-school education
  
• A new minister “minster for immigration affairs” to manage immigration in the interests of immigrants and workers
  
• Any minister reckless with the people’s money will be dismissed.
  
• Specific tax relief for carers and stay at home parents
  
• Stamp duty reform, already promised, lower rates and abolish stamp duty for almost all first time buyers

HE promised to deliver all of this or not seek re-election. If he'd won, he would have in Brain Cowen's shoes so it would have been interesting to see what he would have done.

anymore

RichardAnd wrote: »

Does anyone remember this? Enda's contract for Ireland back in 07

• Free health insurance for children under 16.
  
• Free GP care for children under 5.
  
• 2,300 more hospital beds (as agreed with Labour here)
  
• 2,000 extra gardai
  
• Tougher sentences for criminals.
  
• 6)A years free pre-school education
  
• A new minister “minster for immigration affairs” to manage immigration in the interests of immigrants and workers
  
• Any minister reckless with the people’s money will be dismissed.
  
• Specific tax relief for carers and stay at home parents
  
• Stamp duty reform, already promised, lower rates and abolish stamp duty for almost all first time buyers

HE promised to deliver all of this or not seek re-election. If he'd won, he would have in Brain Cowen's shoes so it would have been interesting to see what he would have done.

Presumably Cowen or martin would have been promising to ' Burn the Bondholders' and Ahern would be President ! :eek:

JimiTime

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The problem is that parties in opposition say what they think the people want them to say and many times they don't know the full story.
Then, when they get in government, they find out that their hands are tied.

Yeah, this is what I mean by convenient. Its quite a convenient excuse to be able to say, 'Ah, but we didn't know the details'. In terms of election promises, they should be able to have access to any relevant data in relation to pre-election promises and be bound to the promise. Its just too easy to lie in relation to what you're going to do in power in the run up to elections. Its like false advertising. You can't get your vote back.

JimiTime

Boulevardier wrote: »

Yes, I have thought so for a long time.

We could bring in a system where parties could "register" specific promises with a section of the High Court. These could only be specific promises, e.g not to close Roscommon A&E; vaguer promises like "ending unemployment" would not qualify.

The leader of a party which signed up to such pledges would be ineligible to serve in government if his/her party were found by the court to have failed to deliver on any such promise.

Sounds good to me. And yeah, the rhetoric would obviously have to be excluded. the electorate would simply have to be aware of rhetoric: 'I stand for Jobs', yeah, like everyone else stands for unemployment:rolleyes: Obviously that kind of carry on is just something we have to live with, but, 'I will not cut wages on PS jobs', that kind of promise would become legally binding if voted in.

JimiTime

RichardAnd wrote: »

Does anyone remember this? Enda's contract for Ireland back in 07

• Free health insurance for children under 16.
  
• Free GP care for children under 5.
  
• 2,300 more hospital beds (as agreed with Labour here)
  
• 2,000 extra gardai
  
• Tougher sentences for criminals.
  
• 6)A years free pre-school education
  
• A new minister “minster for immigration affairs” to manage immigration in the interests of immigrants and workers
  
• Any minister reckless with the people’s money will be dismissed.
  
• Specific tax relief for carers and stay at home parents
  
• Stamp duty reform, already promised, lower rates and abolish stamp duty for almost all first time buyers

HE promised to deliver all of this or not seek re-election. If he'd won, he would have in Brain Cowen's shoes so it would have been interesting to see what he would have done.

Who could forget it. All his Dail debates with his 'Sign the contract. Also, the bit in bold suggests that they would have done no better that FF in stopping the housing bubble/reckless lending, but sure thats not for this thread.

BluntGuy

Circumstances are fluid and the government may legitimately not be able to deliver on promises it legitimately intended on fulfilling and promises it legitimately felt it could fulfill at the time of the election. For example, one could imagine the current government wanted to get a greater share of burden sharing than it did. While there was a lot of huffing and puffing and embarrassing rhetoric before the election, the government finds itself in a position where there are genuine arguments for not "burning the bondholders". Some of these are arguments that have been known for a long time, sure, but some are in response to a rapidly developing, ever-changing situation.

OP, according to your proposal, what should happen in this case?

JimiTime

BluntGuy wrote: »

Circumstances are fluid and the government may legitimately not be able to deliver on promises it legitimately intended on fulfilling and promises it legitimately felt it could fulfill at the time of the election. For example, one could imagine the current government wanted to get a greater share of burden sharing than it did. While there was a lot of huffing and puffing and embarrassing rhetoric before the election, the government finds itself in a position where there are genuine arguments for not "burning the bondholders". Some of these are arguments that have been known for a long time, sure, but some are in response to a rapidly developing, ever-changing situation.

OP, according to your proposal, what should happen in this case?

Burn them at the stake? Only coddin:) What I would suggest, is an environment where they know that they couldn't make promises that may end up biting them. The onus would be on the promise maker to know the facts before the promise. If there are things that have a tendency to change, then it will be their decision on whether to risk making a promise or not.

An Teashop

Well if we said we promise to do everything Europe tells us they wouldn't have voted for us would they?

anymore

BluntGuy wrote: »

Circumstances are fluid and the government may legitimately not be able to deliver on promises it legitimately intended on fulfilling and promises it legitimately felt it could fulfill at the time of the election. For example, one could imagine the current government wanted to get a greater share of burden sharing than it did. While there was a lot of huffing and puffing and embarrassing rhetoric before the election, the government finds itself in a position where there are genuine arguments for not "burning the bondholders". Some of these are arguments that have been known for a long time, sure, but some are in response to a rapidly developing, ever-changing situation.

OP, according to your proposal, what should happen in this case?

I am afrid you have to be a more specific about which arguements have developed in response to a fast moving situation if you want an answer !

Dirk Gently

I think pre-election promises themselves should be banned lest they come with heavy and clear qualifications such as subject to available funds, or these promises aren't independently costed or we will endeavour to work towards such and such. I think it's far better to elect a government based on a proposed programme or set of goals, rather than "promises" which they use to buy the election then restrict them afterwards. Judge them at the end of their term on whether they made acceptable progress towards their programme.

An election "promise" is just a bribe to the voter. Better not to promise what there is a chance you may not be able to deliver. The GE before last, which FF won springs to mind as both labour and FG tried to out do FF to buy the vote based on fantasy growth figures to fund their "promises". I would have much more respect for either party had one of them opted out of the auction and gave a more realistic programme without the promises but both chose to fool the electorate and tried to out promise FF.

An honest ethos going into government and an accountable transparent list of achievements when the term is up should be enough to judge on.

laoch na mona

yes they should

anymore

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The problem is that parties in opposition say what they think the people want them to say and many times they don't know the full story.
Then, when they get in government, they find out that their hands are tied.

I think the case in point here is that FG made promises they were negligent as to whether or not they could ACTUALLY follow through with.

I am sure their former AG, Peter Sutherland would have been only too happy to clarify this, dont you think so ? After all he was very free with his opinion regarding the referenduns, was he not ?

Cork boy 55

Citizens should have abiltiy to recall a TD or a government through direct democracy refernda

for example
Lowry

BluntGuy

anymore wrote: »

I am afrid you have to be a more specific about which arguements have developed in response to a fast moving situation if you want an answer !

For example, the argument about not wanting to lose the substantial progress we have made in reducing bond yields and warming investor sentiment, as well as I suppose a "decoupling" from Greece. The validity of this argument has been done to death on other threads I've viewed, but you cannot deny that these circumstances could not have been foreseen at the time of the election. Sentiment could've gone either way (and still can).

AnamGlas

Of course they should.

See if they follow up on their promises.

RandomName2

JimiTime wrote: »

Well, should they?

Yes. It's a contract and they are hired on that contract.

One might say they will be more vague in their promises if they become legally binding.

Well that would be better than lying or making promises that they know could never be realised.

woodoo

Fine Gael promised countless times in the run up to the election that they would increase Mortgage Interest Relief for those who bought houses between 04 and 08. They have now decided that that will not go ahead.

Their word means nothing. I think there should be some sort of sanction.

hangon

OP i think your question is an excellent one.
it would be impractical for a party to be legally bound for their promise's as anything unforseen could happen.
i would prefer if they called it their 'Party aspirations' rather than manifesto though.

I read Garret Fitzgeralds bio and he said in it that he did not fully realise how bad things were until he was driving away from the Aras and had asked that the 'books' be ready for him to view once he had the seal of office.
all i have read about it says he went into a cold sweat and turned grey when he saw them.

every single cent or whatever) of VAT was going to pay the interest on our loans)
that was less than thirty years ago how times have changed!:)

nesf

No, very simply because one cannot predict the future. Pre-election promises are only relevant if certain conditions in the future are met.

southsiderosie

No.

The problem in Ireland is, people complain about the parties, but then vote for individuals. Other than extreme situations like in the last election, Irish voters have not historically held parties accountable for their poor performance in office. Especially if they got their potholes filled.

The other issue - and this is a general problem - is that the party that made a promise may have to rely on other parties to pass legislation. So Fine Gael may have made promises that Labour didn't - who is accountable then?

Finally, having a legal mechanism to enforce campaign promises in a liberal democracy is, frankly, lazy. Voters need to do their jobs and hold elected officials accountable, not expect the courts to do it for them. If people feel that parties aren't living up to their pre-election promises, then vote the bums out of office in the next election.

thebman

nesf wrote: »

No, very simply because one cannot predict the future. Pre-election promises are only relevant if certain conditions in the future are met.

Well that isn't even true because they always inflate the positive of economic growth to unrealistic levels to promise things they know they can never achieve.

It is more like a wish list. Best thing you can do is ignore the populist things like burn the bondholders and give you all the free stuff you want and see what is left.

Boulevardier

Dirk, your ethos-based scenario is very nice, but it is not democracy.

We need to have some link between what the voters want done and what parliaments actually decide to do. At the moment, there is only one voter sanction, namely replacement of unsatisfactory representatives at the next general election. However, this has mostly led to a replacement of one set of peomise-breakers by another set, and so it goes on, and so faith in political institutions continues to erode.

We seem to be at a disjuncture between representative government and democracy, between Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson if you like. However, I think that demands for democracy are now becoming unanswerable.

anymore

nesf wrote: »

No, very simply because one cannot predict the future. Pre-election promises are only relevant if certain conditions in the future are met.

One of these conditions is how much fuss will the bothersome electorate kick up if the promises are not met.

nesf

anymore wrote: »

One of these conditions is how much fuss will the bothersome electorate kick up if the promises are not met.

That's where the next election comes in. It's grand to piss off the public early in the election cycle so long as you make it up to them towards the end of it. See for reference FF pre-election Budgets.

PRAF

Very interesting question. Someone in my office here asked a similar kind of question. I would love it if there was some sort of National Programme Management Office within the civil service whose job would be to actively manage and drive the agreed programme for government. Not another quango, before people complain, just an existing unit who would be responsible for this job. Imaging the message that sends to politicians - be careful what you promise because if you get elected there will be people whose job it is to see that you deliver on your promises.

However, some other points to consider:
- what do we measure: often lazy journalists and commentators will highlight broken promises that were made by individual politicans or parties. You have to remember that individual politicans don't run the country, governments do. Ireland doesn't generally elect parties to form a majority govenment, usually there has to be a coalition. The thing we should measure is the agreed programme for govt, not individual promises made by a politician or by a party back in 1996 or something. Comparing individual promises is at best lazy and at worst deliberately misleading
- circumstances change: a promise made in February may be totally unrealistic in October / November. You have to adapt and be flexible. If there is a promise to cut taxes for example and then there is some sort of national disaster than means it cannot then happen, is that a broken promise or is it responsible govt?
- admiting mistakes: what if a genuine promise was made which then needs to be broken because in light of more detailed information being available to the person / party who made the promise. Should they continue with the wrong course of action because they made the promise or should they admit their mistake and do the right thing?

Drumcondra Mafia

JimiTime wrote: »

Well, should they? I find it most convenient that opposition parties can simply say after election 'Well we didn't have access to all the data' etc. Would it be plausible to have a system where they actually did have access to any data required so that their pre-election manifesto was a legally binding document. This would also mean socialist-style parties would not be able to promise things they couldn't deliver. A consaquence of non-delivery is expulsion from government as they gained power under false pretences etc.

i mean, it just seems ridiculous that we can have pre-election promises made and then just not followed through with. i mean, they get votes based on their promises in many cases. Its like buying a Playstation 3, then getting home and opening the box, only to discover that the box was only to entice you, and that theres a sega megadrive in the box.

Surely such a move can only be good for democracy, and give us confidence in politicians word?

Obviously my 'proposal' is a bit raw in detail, but you know what I'm getting at.

EDIT: Just to ad, is there a reason why this should not, or could not be done?

Why should they be legally binding if some people who are totally against those policies . How are you going to prove who really voted for who?

Drumcondra Mafia

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

Citizens should have abiltiy to recall a TD or a government through direct democracy refernda

for example
Lowry

Why should a citizen from Leitrim have any say in how citizens in Tipperary North vote? I understand that he still, somehow, has the loyal support of North Tipperary.