Abstract

The development of the digital world offers opportunities to consider the expansion of the idea of participatory democracy. One of the technologies enabling a wider use of social participation institutions in practice is Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). In this article, I shall consider the possibilities in which may be implemented as a mechanism propagating safe exercise of public authority by entities authorized to do so (usually citizens) via the Internet. The adoption of this paradigm may significantly contribute to the dissemination of institutions, which in their current form are relatively rarely used by citizens, mainly due to problems with the traditional (analogue) collection of signatures for bills, drafts or referendum requests. The information society, as well as the fact that a significant part of public life has been transferred to the Internet, leads to a reflection that participation could also be implemented in the digital world. This would allow for its wider use. The DLT technology has features that enable safe and verifiable participation in the accepted forms of participation. In this article, I mainly refer to the possibility of using this solution in Polish legislation.