[mosdef]

Thanks to everybody who has contributed to this post. I really appreciate the feedback.

One of the more prominent objections to PR that has been brought up is that it enhances access to the political process for "special interest" or "extreme" parties. In particular, I think that there is a fear that you would end up with members of parliament (or whatever the legislative body would be) that were representatives of the Fascist Party or the Anti-Abortion Party or the We Hate Islam Party (for example).

I think that one mechanism already exists in North America and that could prohibit or limit the influence of such parties, and that is the existing "fundamental principle documents" such at the Constitutions and, in Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Parties that have platforms that would violate the basic rights protected by the fundamental documents would not be able to enact any of their values as law because the courts would uphold the Constitution and override any bill that these parties were able to garner support for.

I suppose that there would be a fear that the fundamental documents would be changed, but special interest parties would have a hard time gaining enough political power to do that. It seems that building a system of PR on top of a framework of basic human rights would keep the "bad" fringe parties politically impotent but would allow more substantial smaller parties to have the power that the popular vote suggests that they should.

Please attack this argument.