Disobedience as a Principle of Democracy

The article examines the justifications of civil disobedience around a moral principle, which is not freedom but self-confidence and which encourages the individual to refuse the common law accepted by others, based on his own conviction that it is unjust and unacceptable. Far from representing a rejection of politics or an action at its margins, acts of disobedience call for an extension of the rights and liberties that a democracy should guarantee to its citizens. Disobedience can only occur in democracy, when one no longer finds in the public sphere the conditions of dialogue necessary to express one’s dissent, or when one has been deprived of one’s voice. Disobedience is a reminder of the principle of democracy which is the equal and unconditional expression of each citizen.