Specific rules applicable to referendums held at the request of a section of the electorate and to popular initiatives (where they are provided for in the Constitution)

46. (Optional) referendums held at the request of a section of the electorate and popular initiatives entail the collection of signatures. The guidelines set out a number of rules in this respect, not all of which will be discussed in detail here.

47. Entitlement to collect signatures could be confined to registered electors. It can be extended to everyone, including foreigners and minors with capacity to judge (this is advisable in respect of texts concerning their status) (point III.3.d).

48. Authorisation may be required in order to gather signatures on public thoroughfares. As with any restriction of fundamental rights, such authorisation may be refused only where there is a legal basis for doing so and in accordance with the principles of public interest, proportionality and equality (point III.3.e).

49. The collection of signatures should not be remunerated or funded from private sources. Where remuneration is permitted, it must apply only to those who collect signatures, and not to electors who sign a popular initiative or a request for a referendum. It must be regulated, with regard to both the total amount allocated and the amount paid to each person collecting signatures (point III.3.f).

50. It is important that signatures are checked, until it has been established beyond doubt that the number of valid signatures required by law has been collected or there are no more signatures to check (point III.3.g). The success or failure of an initiative or a request for a referendum must not be determined on the basis of a sample, which might contain an unusually high number of invalid signatures or, on the contrary, might not contain any while other sheets of signatures might be full of them.

51. As underlined by the Parliamentary Assembly, “referendums should, so far as possible, be called on subjects that are likely to attract significant public interest”. Since it is not realistic to define in advance what is likely to attract significant public interest, the best way to address this requirement is to ask for a sufficiently high number of signatures, without making the possibility of a referendum merely theoretical. The revised guidelines recommend making the number of signatures proportional to the number of registered voters, in order not to have to adapt legislation regularly to the evolution of this number (point III.3.c).