* Originally Published in revista 22 collection ' a Constitution for liberty III '
When we think about constitutional reform, it would be preferable to have in mind a general principle to guide its efforts. We will explain below why the principle director should provide the basis for organizing the administrative State is subsidiarity. This principle is implemented in and assumed a certain degree of organization-level EU, but it must be applied including inside the Member States. Both the Union and the Member States, the role is to ensure optimal relationships between levels of vertical separatiei.
The concept of subsidiarity has achieved a theoretical and empirical support ever more solid in recent decades, in particular thanks to the studies of School at Bloomington, who acquired the world famous last year with the Nobel Prize in economics won by Elinor Ostrom. The argument in favour of subsidiarity is based on findings about the efficiency and stability of local government and of the opposition, polycentric meters with centralized type organizarile, whose operation is based on pyramidal hierarchies. There are two complementary criteria, then can be appreciated a correct vertical color separation of powers.
The first criterion is effective. According to subsidiarity, decisions affecting a community representatives should be taken as close by the community members. Any decision coming from distance, from a "Centre" should be justified by showing that the problem addressed decision that could not be resolved at a local level. We talk about governance when a local community solve their problems only: when deciding what rules only to have, when they defend the only rules the financial autosustine (except for emergency situations). Subsidiary says it all these three aspects must be kept at the most local level possible, but accepts that different issues must be addressed at different levels of organisation. Therefore, effective in resolving the public occurs when government levels are properly demarcated, and authoritative domains are allocated starting from logic.
The second criterion is the operation of "contraponderilor and echilibrarilor" (checks and balances), aimed at preventing and avoiding abuse. From this point of view are of maximum interest relations between the levels of Government. The Poles are illegitimate interference discussed the Central Government in local problems, on the one hand, and the prevention of local government abuse, on the other hand. This problem is addressed by a concept of subsidiarity, complements, namely polycentricity. By policentricitate is a specific type of organization of local communities autoguvernate in social systems than larger and more complex, as are the modern States. Many problems cannot be solved at the local level as strictly. Therefore, there must be more general rules, and to come from a higher level. For example, tiraniile should not be allowed-local and central level is the task of the State (or the EU) to ensure that certain universal rights of the individual are respected in all communities, regardless of the views prevalent in those communities. A matter such as protecting ethnic or religious minorities is not an internal problem of local communities, but is a general problem. But it is essential that the highest levels of decision not to make decisions than exclusively in such matters of a general nature. Polycentricity ensure this conceptualizand higher levels of organization as associations of representatives of local communities, often formed volunteer to address matters of common interest. In Romania cannot happen this because the trajectory taken starting with administrative reform and the Constitution of the 1860s was an operator, which destroyed both the tradition of local communities autoguvernate ("obstile"), and the modern State of cities before self-government. Centralizing the State culminated in the Communist totalitarianism.
Thus understood, subsidiarity and every other mirror polycentricity are: subsidiarity refers to its own space of each level of Government, and local concerns autoguvernarilor aggregation polycentricity in composite systems.
Below we detail the meaning and space autoguvernarii. The key aspect are the laws and regulations. Besides the reasons related to the large number and their weak quality, one of the main reasons why laws are not applicable in Romania is that those who must apply them have interest not to do so (they are corrupt and obtain benefits from the application of discretion of the laws) do not have the necessary information (even if they are good-faith) and are not punished if not doing their duty. These issues have absolutely nothing to do with the mentality or culture, but are direct consequence of hierarchical organization of the State: the connection between elector and the public will (be it institutional nature-quality and compliance with laws, or in the provision of public goods and services direct-roads, health, education, etc.) is too vague, because as is intermediata too many successive esaloane of politicians and the public administration. In a hierarchical organization like the one inherited from the Communist regime, at each level in the hierarchy are losing something from the original purpose of the public good. This is inevitable in the current conditions. On the other hand, if the rules are created by members of the community, directly or through their representatives, if the monitors are imediati community members or its employees and if everything runs on money, and not money, all participants in the system have a personal interest that the rules to be respected, not convenience to tolerate or profiteers to see that their are wasting money. The same logic applies to the highest levels then of organizing polycentric. Thus it eliminates the problem of having laws only on paper.
Explicitand, local self-government requires, in addition to self-regulation and self-organization freedoms discussed above, two more elements: self-financing and a local competitive political environment.
The current tax system consists of centralized collection of taxes, followed by their redistributia towards local level-it is clear that it must be ensured between the principle of subsidiarity and coherence structure of the tax system. Redistributive system, public money is even faster than dissipates the purpose in numerous inefficient and abuses. That's why public goods and services provided directly to be paid locally, and the central level should be paid only to public goods and services actually provided by it, like defense, diplomacy, higher levels of Justice, etc.
The counterargument here often invoked as some counties are poor and can not afford these goods-is wrong, because there may be a charge for these assistance destined for central districts without the whole system to be organized distributive.
The other aspect, the competitiveness of the local political environment, it is critical. The rules of the political process and exotic system of tax from the potlatch central towards the local (brokered by county councils) are local barons power sources. They exist as phenomena of transition because there's a nice, placed at the interface between local and central level, that the current system allows both control of the flow of resources from the central to the local level (votes), and vice versa (money). The Elimination of both distortion (electoral and redistributiva) preconditia is absolutely necessary subsidiarity and policentricitatii functioning as mechanisms to increase economic prosperity and the realization of the ideal of democratic representation degree.
To emphasize the challenge to which we must aspire. If local representatives would no longer be able to receive funds for all sorts of projects of strictly local interest, funds that are awarded on the political criteria, and would instead give the freedom to organize these projects at the local level, the result would be a process of institutional experimentation in the service of the taxpayer: the main "clients" of local representatives would become citizens of and not the Central Government. At the same time, it is necessary to increase political competition through repeal of rules as well as choosing the list closed to local councilors and County, respectively, tying their office party lists which have been chosen. To these you can add restrictions and establishing new political parties and independent candidates disadvantage. In the absence of a local competitive political environment, decentralization may not lead to feudalizare-the phenomenon of local barons.
Autoguvernarii local function allows the aggregate and solving quality of rules and regulations. The solution is indirect, but much more efficient than the present. In a system described by subsidiarity and policentricitate there are no ad hoc recipes imposed on all, but there is an ecology of rules. Why do we have bad laws? Precisely because it is forbidden to experimentation. Creating from top to bottom of the laws is not feasible-local problems are far too diverse and specific to be able to be resolved, centralized unit. The best solution is to allow for the variations between the local autoguvernarile to let them experience what goes and what doesn't and to let communities to imitate each other.
Decentralization is the process by which you can move from the current status towards the ideal of subsidiarity. The process of decentralization that has occurred in recent years has been done on the wrong principles: there is not now a decentralization of the rules and control the resources, nor the local political process. For this reason, local governance does not exist in Romania, nor can there be, as long as people aren't given the power and means to decide for themselves how to organize.
