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by JumpCrisscross 727 days ago
> certainly doesn't prevent politicians from voting for unconstitutional laws

At that point you no longer have a legislative body, but an advisory council to whomever it is that decides what votes are and aren’t punishable. (See: Iran, China, the Roman Principate, early parliamentary monarchies.)
2 comments
mro_name 727 days ago
difficult balancing act. Having a legislative body throwing fundamental rights out of the window isn't appealing either.
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JumpCrisscross 727 days ago
> Having a legislative body throwing fundamental rights out of the window isn't appealing either

They’re not. They’re discussing it. Even if they pass it, it’s subject to court review.

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Aerroon 727 days ago
Yes, it's subject to court review... Five years down the line. Meanwhile they will force member states to act according to it. If they refuse they will sue them!

This is exactly what happened with the Data Retention Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

>According to the Data Retention Directive, EU member states had to store information on all citizens' telecommunications data (phone and internet connections) for a minimum of six months and at most twenty-four months, to be delivered on demand to police authorities.

First passed: March 15, 2006

Came into force: May 3rd, 2006

The law was introduced in Romania, but a year later the constitutional court struck it down. In 2011 the European Commission sued Romania for not implementing the law and fined them for it. This forced Romania to sign a new law in 2012, which was also declared unconstitutional in 2014.

>On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid

And the kicker is that the UK has tried to implement a similar law domestically two more times.

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lucianbr 727 days ago
It's only difficult because people keep voting for politicians willing to throw fundamental rights out the window. I don't think any solution exists in this circumstance. People want to vote for bad politicians but to get good results. Good luck designing a system that does that, and does not just discount what people vote for.
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mro_name 718 days ago
but I see the problem https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-26/suprem...
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