Citizen participation: Who gets the money from inadmissible donations?

Austria's Court of Auditors has found a new way to deal with inadmissible party donations. Citizens are invited to give suggestions to which the homeless institutions should be distributed the returned money. These inadmissible donations come from the Greens, the SPÖ and the ÖVP. The call to citizen participation runs until March 3 and interested parties can submit their ideas via email, direct message in social media or by post, as vienna.at reports .

Citizen participation and democracy

The idea behind this initiative is to actively involve citizens in the democratic process. This happens at a time when trust in democracy is often at stake. Democratic principles have their pitfalls, as the researcher Hans Vorländer explains: In democracies, the majority can suppress minorities, which is known as the "tyranny of the majority". In order to counteract this, it is important that minorities also have the opportunity to enforce their rights and to find it, such as Quarks.de .

The relevance of this fundraising is also underlined by the context of social developments. While some civil society groups are more heard, others continue to fight for their rights. In a functioning democracy, it is crucial that all voices are heard to ensure complete representation and to protect the democratic balance. With this campaign of the Auditors' Court, a step in the right direction is to put those who may be overlooked in the spotlight.