دانش حقوق عمومی (Sep 2024)
"Requirements of a Jurisprudential-Legal Approach to Post-Electoral Compensation for Non-fulfillment or Violation of Electoral Promises."
Abstract
Democracy is intrinsically linked to the phenomenon of elections, the right to self-determination, and the political participation of the people. In this context, electoral promises made by candidates and parties during election campaigns can, despite potentially facilitating the exercise of voting rights appropriately, violate the right of voters to participate and determine their fate due to the lack of oversight over the promises made or the feasibility of their realization. In this descriptive-analytical study, using comparative legal methods, the issue at hand is whether, in the absence of an appropriate pre-electoral oversight structure over candidates' promises in Iran's legal system, legal and judicial responsibility can be attributed for the non-fulfillment of these promises (as a post-electoral approach). Undoubtedly, the answer to this question is illuminated by the considerations and requirements that this writing seeks to express, ultimately leading to the possibility or impossibility of legal action regarding the violation of electoral promises. The conclusion is that in designing an appropriate response, attention must be paid to political legitimacy theories, as well as principles such as: the necessity of distinguishing contractual responsibility from tortious responsibility, adopting a fuzzy approach in explaining responsibility, the need to separate "promise to act" from "promise of result," maximizing compensation for the effects of violations, and the necessity of proving a "causal relationship" between the promise and the vote. The difficulty in realizing these criteria and the subjective nature of some of them pose serious challenges to the possibility of legal action against the violation of electoral promises.
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