How should democratic participation be articulated to offer a procedural justification for democratic decisions respectful of citizens’ equal status as capable of self-legislation? In addressing this question, I claim that the enhancement of the justification of democratic decisions requires an enhancement of citizens’ rights to political participation. The enhancement should go beyond decision-making but extend to what happens after a provision has been enacted through securing space for contestation, both through legal means (as for example judicial review) and through such forms of illegal protest as civil disobedience and conscientious objection. I argue that institutional arrangements providing for decision-making through majority voting cum public deliberation, and securing room for contestation cum illegal protest meet a set of individually necessary but only jointly sufficient conditions for a liberal democratic order that realizes at the largest possible extent the procedural principle of equal respect for persons’ capacity for self-legislation, hence offering a pro tanto justification of democratic decisions through political participation. This is sufficient to justify coercion of dissenters.
