More than 30 million people have signed at least one petition addressed to the UK Parliament, representing over a third of the country’s population. This figure illustrates the potential of electronic petition platforms to expand citizen participation in the parliamentary agenda.
This point was highlighted by Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Professor at the University of Leeds and Chair of the International Parliament Engagement Network, during the webinar “Right to petition: international experiences to revitalise citizen power in digital democracy”, organised by Political Watch Spain on 3 February. The event brought together specialists, institutional representatives, and international experts to discuss how the right to petition can be strengthened in the context of digital democracy.
During her intervention, Leston-Bandeira presented the UK Parliament’s e-petitions system, developed to link citizen petitions to parliamentary activity. As she explained, these tools have significantly broadened opportunities for citizen participation, although they also pose challenges in managing large volumes of petitions and ensuring that diverse groups of citizens engage in the participatory process.
The discussion took place alongside the presentation of a report by Miguel Ángel Gonzalo, Director of Documentation at the Congreso de los Diputados (Spain) and Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. According to Gonzalo, the main challenge is to connect citizen petitions with parliamentary decision-making, as otherwise “the right to petition becomes merely decorative”.
The data presented highlight the limitations of the current system in Spain. During the current legislature, the Congress of Deputies has received 386 citizen petitions, of which 380 were referred to other institutions without generating direct parliamentary consequences. In the Senate, 53% of petitions are archived outright. Moreover, the Congress Petitions Committee meets very infrequently—around one and a half hours per legislature—far less than other parliamentary committees.
The event also featured other international experts, including Maarja-Leena Saar, responsible for Estonia’s petition portal Rahvaalgatus.ee, who emphasised the importance of institutional independence in petition platforms to build public trust. Likewise, Alberto Alemanno, founder of The Good Lobby, warned of the persistence of an institutional culture that often resists translating citizen petitions into concrete action.
Among the main conclusions of the discussion was the need to modernise the Spanish petitions system through accessible digital tools, clear mechanisms of accountability and procedures that connect citizen demands with the parliamentary agenda. As participants noted, the success of petitions lies not solely in solving specific problems but also in their ability to bring neglected issues onto the public agenda and open spaces for democratic deliberation.
Image credit: By Epaminondas Pantulis – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=341871