Democracy, despite its inherent shortcomings, is being pitched as most successful form of governance till date. It is considered that democracy is an outcome of peoples urge to be governed by electing their representatives to legislature, provide executive power to administer that disperses the justice to people through a judicial mechanism.
However, till middle of 20th century the role of citizenry was confined to the extent of electing their representatives to govern by way of making laws and administer by providing the state structure. The role of citizen participation in human development through the policies formulated by the administrative setup backed by the elected legislature came into focus only after the same was envisaged in United Nations Development Report. The report which focused more on poverty also detailed about how poverty limits the human choices and opportunities.
The inability of citizens to participate in decision making had been point of debate for a long time as it was considered that non-participation limits the meaning of political freedom and brings in focus the critical issue of transparency in relation to developmental funding. Here the importance of freedom of expression was felt as it was guaranteed to the citizens by the democracy and derives its origin from Article 10 of European convention on human rights which refers to “freedom to hold opinions, receive and impart information”. The exercising of this right by the citizens ensured the participation of the citizenry to look over the elected representatives and hold the whole administrative setup run by these representatives accountable before it.
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