Democracy is supposed to be the power of the people. By definition. Moreover, most lay people will understand it that way.
When the government makes a decision that contradicts the will of the people, it is not democratic. Period. If the people really held the power, that decision wouldn't have been made in the first place.
The way the government was appointed doesn't matter, once you know of its actual decisions. Being democratically elected doesn't magically make all of your decisions democratic! Even if you stick to lawful decisions, I might add. Besides, there are a lot of ways for elected officials to have different interests than the general population.
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That said, "democratic" does not mean "good". It is quite possible (though unlikely in my personal opinion) that the will of the people was wrong, and that European treaty was a good thing. In which case it was a good thing to go against the will of the people.
Serious. I'm not saying this particular decision was bad. I'm just saying it was undemocratic.
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One last thing: you say our "democratically elected" parliament had, among other things, a mandate to ratifying European treaties. Only problem was, the entire political class wanted this particular treaty to happen. Very few thought otherwise. And those had other opinions about other subjects that often made them a big no-no for most people (extreme right and extreme left, mostly).
We did not have much choice when we elected our officials. It was like, this guy who wanted the treaty to happen, and that gal who also wanted the treaty to happen, and maybe that crazy fellow who did not want this, but had also a couple insane ideas we did not endorse.
When the government makes a decision that contradicts the will of the people, it is not democratic. Period. If the people really held the power, that decision wouldn't have been made in the first place.
The way the government was appointed doesn't matter, once you know of its actual decisions. Being democratically elected doesn't magically make all of your decisions democratic! Even if you stick to lawful decisions, I might add. Besides, there are a lot of ways for elected officials to have different interests than the general population.
---
That said, "democratic" does not mean "good". It is quite possible (though unlikely in my personal opinion) that the will of the people was wrong, and that European treaty was a good thing. In which case it was a good thing to go against the will of the people.
Serious. I'm not saying this particular decision was bad. I'm just saying it was undemocratic.
---
One last thing: you say our "democratically elected" parliament had, among other things, a mandate to ratifying European treaties. Only problem was, the entire political class wanted this particular treaty to happen. Very few thought otherwise. And those had other opinions about other subjects that often made them a big no-no for most people (extreme right and extreme left, mostly).
We did not have much choice when we elected our officials. It was like, this guy who wanted the treaty to happen, and that gal who also wanted the treaty to happen, and maybe that crazy fellow who did not want this, but had also a couple insane ideas we did not endorse.