On Monday 20 July 2015, the first Petitions Committee was established in the UK and on the following day, the site ‘petition.parliament.uk’ went up.
Since then, e-petitions have been used numerous times to communicate to the government the public’s views and opinions.
But has the establishment of e-petitions truly been as successful as many portray it?
To get parliament to respond to a petition, a petition needs to gain 10,000 signatures, and to get parliament to consider debating a topic in parliament, the petition needs 100,000 signatures.
The word consider is significant in this case.
A large majority of the petitions that reach such numbers are actually never debated in parliament.
It is up to the Petitions Committee to decide which petitions to discuss in parliament, and if it is deemed that a topic is unsuitable, it is not mandatory for the parliament to discuss it.
Many people deem this undemocratic.
After all, if the populous has deemed this subject important and it has reached the threshold of necessary votes, why shouldn’t it be debated?
On the other hand, debating an issue that had already been debated and reached a decisive decision could be considered a waste of the parliament’s time, especially when considering the number of serious issues in our country.
One of the prime examples of the e-petitions failing was the petition published following the Brexit crisis.
The petition was titled ‘Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU’, and got over 6 million signatures.
Although the topic was debated in parliament due to the volume of signatures, nothing was changed.
This left many citizens frustrated, especially those who signed the petition.
However, one of the positive aspects of e-petitions is that the petitions that are debated, even if no action is taken, allow the public to see parliament’s stances on such matters.
Overall, although e-petitions are not as successful as often depicted, they are still useful, and everyone should ensure they sign petitions they feel strongly about.
