Open town meeting
The People's Assembly, (Greek ἐκκλησία, ekklesia; Latin comitia ( pl. ) for the various meetings ) is the public meeting of the citizens of a state or other authority (eg a municipality) for various policy purposes.
These may include public discussion of political issues, which include decision by voting, the holders of political office or other documents. The People's Assembly is the institutional antidote to the modern parliaments of representative democracy, in which specially appointed and usually come together full-time representatives of the people for political consultation and decision and is excluded from the activities of ordinary citizens in general.
The historical origin of the popular assemblies lies in antiquity, especially in ancient Greece, where numerous city-states ( poleis ) of this sometimes more, sometimes less formal establishment of ἐκκλησία, possessed. The best known is certainly the Athenian popular assembly (see Athenian democracy ), were allowed to attend the all Athenian citizens with full rights and repeatedly met in the month of solid place to decide the most important interests of the State. But even in the Roman Republic existed popular assemblies, the most significant among them the Comitia Centuriata.
In the old Germanic law, the concept Thing is used for public meetings. He has received, among others, the Icelandic Althing, and in some places in Switzerland in the form of the rural community (eg rural community ( Glarus ) ) or at the local level in smaller communities as community meeting.
Public meetings in the literal sense can be found in today's political systems are just extremely rare, as in representative democracy, the sovereign electorate only in the act of voting and then represented by its elected representatives ( MPs), as well as " extra-parliamentary " forms of political influence (through demonstrations ), participates in the political process. In some Swiss cantons and in smaller communities in New England ( for example, Groveland ( Massachusetts)) are popular assemblies still part of the political order, but then sometimes form the political center of power.