In Germany, for example, there is considerable disquiet on this account at her Government's decision to abolish the Deutschmark. Concerns there are heightened by high unemployment and a lack of economic reform in Europe as a whole. Indeed a group of leading economists and lawyers in Germany mounted a challenge in the German Constitutional Court against that decision, albeit unsuccessfully. In Germany, the judiciary may or may not constitute a less illusory bulwark against an arbitrary executive than the elected members of the German parliament whose democratic legitimation is compromised by the list system and proportional representation. Whatever their theoretical attractions, those voting systems also unfortunately allow party machines to usurp the role of the people in electing their representatives, as was seen most glaringly, in England as well, during the recent elections to the European Parliament.
Power proceeds from the people.
Yet the fact that politicians are mandated by the people does not mean that they are bound within narrow limits imposed by their constituents. According to Burke, the elected member should be a representative, not a mere delegate pledged to obey undeviatingly the wishes of his constituents. As a valid statement of an MP's assertion of independence from vested interests this proposition may be assented to. Yet I do not believe that the terms in which Klaus Klinkel's exhortation to the political class is couched owe anything to Burkean principle. What they reveal is rather the opening of an abyss.