This is commonly used in disability care. It sets the standard to strongly include the person/people affected in decisions that affect them. It is very helpful to address unequal power dynamics especially where those charged with providing care have unequal power with the recipient; think teacher, surgery, disability care etc.

In practical terms, it encourages officers and practitioners to stop assuming and do the work to bridge the gap and attempt to find out as best they can what the person affected would like to happen. It leads to much superior decision making as surprise, suprise, finding out what a user really wants over just assuming (and often missing important details), amazingly, leads to much more informed and improved decision making that also work better for the people involved and affected.

>The slogan also gained popularity during World War II when the Munich Agreement was signed without the presence of Czechoslovakia.

The definition as written sounds kind of extreme? It basically says your representatives have to take a referendum on any policy that could possibly affect you... increasing (or decreasing) taxes, setting rules for driving on the road, etc. I don't imagine that was the intent?

At the very least, a public comment period would seem to suffice.

This is a phrase I use often when talking about immigrants. A big part of my job is navigating them through systems that do not account for them, the nonstandard, non-voting masses. It would be good to have a "falsehood bureaucracies believe about people" list.

Sounds like it’s just a counter to “for the people, not by the people”