The short answer would be: sometimes. The long answer is a bit more nuanced.
, a total of 428 public petitions [of which 231 were declared admissible] and 49 ordinary petitions [34 were declared admissible] were formulated. This represents an increase of 58% and 250% respectively over the past 12 months. The growing interest in joining the public debate is therefore undeniable.
Delano sat down with CSV deputy and head of the parliament’s petitions committee, Nancy Kemp-Arendt, to have a closer look at this tool and why you should know more about it.
Who can start a petition?
“Anyone over the age of 15 who is in the national registry,” says Kemp-Arendt,. This includes non-nationals, as well as cross-border workers, who have a connection to the grand duchy through their employment.
While you can submit the petition on paper, many people now rely to make their demands heard.
Ordinary petition vs public petition?
An ordinary petition is a citizen's demand on which a minister must take a position. The query, once received, can either be sent to a minister or to the parliamentary commission in charge of this topic.
A public petition, on the other hand, needs at least 4,500 signatures to be debated. It gives the petitioner the possibility to “explain their ideas in more detail and exchange with deputies directly during a public debate,” explains Kemp-Arendt. Ministers then have to take a stance on the subject.
People are more and more asking for a right to participate in discussions and debates.
Why are some petitions picked up and others not?
Petitions have to meet several criteria before they can be accepted and opened to the public. The employees in the petitions commission of the Chamber of Deputies analyse the public request. Even if the petitioner meets the legal requirement, not everything goes, Kemp-Arendt explains. The petition must serve a national interest and the text has to be void of any racist or discriminatory vocabulary or motives.
But the text also has to be written well enough that signatories understand what they are supporting. “We check the title and text and make sure they’re comprehensible.” If the submission meets all criteria but lacks in clarity, the committee will contact the petitioner and give them another chance to rephrase their request.
What happens once a petition has been opened for signature?
If the petition meets all the preliminary criteria, it is uploaded on the chamber’s dedicated website, where it will remain accessible for 42 days. During that time period, the petitioner has to gather 4,500 valid signatures. Then, if the threshold has been crossed by the time the 42-day-period has passed, the signatures are checked to make sure there are no doubles, triples, or fake identities.
For 5,000 signatures, it takes the chamber’s commission about 2 weeks to verify the supporters’ identities. The difficulty lies in making sure that the three John Smith’s that have registered are effectively three separate (and existing) people. A tricky task that the petitions committee hopes to fix over the next year, “maybe by asking people to provide a partial social security number”, Kemp-Arendt comments.
But there is never a guarantee that what you asked for will be put in place just because you were granted a debate.
And then…?
If there are still more than 4,500 signatures after all fakes have been eliminated, the petitioner is invited to come to the chamber of deputies alongside 5 guests (experts, emotional support, witnesses, everything goes).
There they can present their demand in 10 minutes, and answer the questions of deputies. The MPs and government then have to debate the topic and take a position on the topic. “But there is never a guarantee that what you asked for will be put in place just because you were granted a debate,” Kemp-Arendt underlines. Regardless, “it’s important that the idea is heard and puts pressure on politicians.”
At the end, the chamber of deputies comes together with the government to see if anything can and should be done.
People want to talk to politicians, they want to close the gap.
Is there a point in submitting a petition during the parliament’s summer break?
“Our service needs a break too,” Kemp-Arendt says. The petitions commission has seen its workload soar over the last twelve months, so they will not be working on submissions until September. “But you can submit your text at any time during the summer too.”
Can a petitioner have an impact?
“What we’ve witnessed since we’ve reintroduced this tool in 2014 is that people are more and more asking for a right to participate in discussions and debates. People want to talk to politicians, they want to close the gap,” says Kemp-Arendt.
Sometimes, the deputy explains, it’s not even about demanding change, but about bringing awareness to a certain topic. Kemp-Arendt takes the example of a petition that asked for two sick days a month for menstruating women. Though the measure couldn’t be put in place, “it was about lifting a taboo off a subject that affects more than half of our population,” Kemp-Arendt explains.
Even petitions that don’t reach the threshold can bring on change, if they attract the attention of the government, a deputy or even media sites. So, even if “it’s never a guarantee for change”, the petition system, if used correctly, remains a great tool to raise questions and become more involved in national politics.