Brazil

Bill of Popular Initiative Against Vote-Buying

City/State/Region
Begin – End: 1997 – 1999
Name of organization in charge: Comissão Brasileira de Justiça e Paz
Type of organization in charge: civil society
Level: national

Impact

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Implementation: was the innovation effectively, partially or not put into practice at all?

Fulfillment of Aims: were the goals of the innovation completely, partially or not achieved at all?

Output: has the innovation generated recommendations, initiatives, decisions or policies?

Outcome: if there were a policy output, was it enacted or implemented?

Implementation: yes
Fulfillment of Democratic Innovation’s aim: yes
Output: yes
Policy Outcome: yes

The Bill of Popular Initiative against vote buying was a civil society initiative promoted, especially, by the Brazilian Commission of Justice and Peace, to modify the federal law on vote buying. The campaign was initiated in 1997, and resulted in the approval of Act 9,840, on September 28th, 1999. This law changed the federal legislation in two aspects. The first modification determined that any candidate who buys votes in any way or through any means, in addition to receiving the penalty stated in the criminal code for standard criminal proceedings, will, upon a summary procedure, have his registration revoked and pay a fine. The other alteration inhibits the use of the administrative machinery in favor of the candidate?s own candidature in the case of re-election. This was the first Bill of Popular Initiative adopted in the country. Laws of Popular Initiative are provided for in Brazil by the Constitution of 1988. In order to commence this legislative process, the bill must be supported by one per cent of the national electorate in at least five states and at least 0.3% of voters from each state.

Institutional design

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Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?

Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?

Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?

Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?

Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?

Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?

Formalization: embedded in the constitution/legislation
Frequency: single
Mode of selection of participants: open
Type of participants: citizens civil society
Decisiveness: democratic innovation yields no decision
Co-Governance: no

Means

Deliberation
Direct Voting
E-Participation
Citizen Representation

Ends

Accountability
Responsiveness
Rule of Law
Political Inclusion
Social Equality

Policy cycle

Agenda setting

Formulation and decision-making

Implementation

Policy Evaluation