The
Conscience Vote in a Representative Democracy
SAVES issued this statement in February 1997 in protest at the widespread
abuse of the conscience vote by parliamentarians charged with determining
the future of the Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.
The role of the "conscience" vote in a parliamentary democracy has come
into sharp focus in the debate over voluntary euthanasia legislation. A
conscience vote allows an MP to vote, or refrain from voting, according
to what seems personally "right" or "wrong" regardless of party affiliation
or policy. It is obviously not a measure of universal truth, since individual
consciences turn out to be diametrically opposed on moral issues - not
least voluntary euthanasia.
Are MPs who exercise a conscience vote answerable only to themselves?
Suppose that what they deem "wrong" is deemed "right" by a majority of
the electorate? As elected representatives in a liberal democracy do their
consciences no longer have to respect the views - indeed, the consciences
- of their constituents? After all, we know that the great majority of
Australians - around 75% - respond positively to the opinion poll question
that ends "... should the doctor be allowed to give a lethal dose or
not?".
Opinion polls should not determine government policy, but is settling
a complex social question by means of a "conscience" vote better? The government's
task of balancing potential social benefit against potential social harm
requires an assessment of probabilities, not a judgement of "conscience".
The questions facing elected lawmakers are not, "Is the proposal repugnant
to you?" but, "What do the people want and will society benefit?".
Is it ethical in a secular liberal democracy for an elected member knowingly
to vote against the wishes of the electorate, merely on personal grounds?
Lobbying members of parliament over voluntary euthanasia legislation reveals
that the dilemma has been resolved for some by the fortunate discovery
in themselves of an "informed conscience". This is a combination
of moral and intellectual wisdom possessed by MPs but lacking in most voters.
It is confirmed in the words of Edmund Burke, who said to the Electors
of Bristol on the 3rd November 1774: "Your representative owes you, not
his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays instead of serving
you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
This depicts a world where members of parliament have been elected for
their superior judgement, by people with inferior opinions who are best
served by their betters. It is alarming to find that Burke's opinions,
expressed in Britain over 200 years ago in quite different circumstances,
are considered relevant to Australia today. Possibly in Burke's day, with
an illiterate, ill-informed public, there was some justification for the
way he saw his role; but there is none today. Burke's views are a denial
of representative democracy and a recipe for political arrogance: a treacherous
downward path in the exercise of political power. Autocrats make the same
claim.
Burke also held that political office is "a trust from Providence",
which is an appalling denigration of the universal adult franchise. The
democratic system is essentially secular. The notion that voters choose
as their representatives people who are to be guided in what they do by
what they think a deity requires of them, rather than by those who elected
them, substitutes a version of theocracy for democracy.
The exercise of a conscience vote enables individual representatives
to dissociate themselves from what they personally disagree with, but it
it still has to be reconciled with representative democracy. Those whose
personal or religious conscience puts them at odds with their constituents
should abstain from voting. To do otherwise is knowingly to thwart the
will of the electorate and it is hard to see how the conscience of an elected
representative can condone that.
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