The rights of legislative petition and legislative initiative of citizens as democracy increasing intruments

Abstract

This study addresses a conceptual and comparative analysis of legislative petition and legislative initiative of citizens before the Portuguese Parliament, in order to distinguish the specificity of its functional scope in the political system and, especially, in the decision making legislative power. It includes a triple analytical approach: of a political nature, which highlights its relevance to the concept of democracy; of a legal nature, which examines its constitutional and legal regime; and of empirical nature, which assesses its exercise in parliamentary legislatures favorable to their exponentiation.