Citizens’ Assemblies
Ping pong and George Darroch both drew to my attention this article about citizen’s assemblies earlier this week and it’s one worth sharing because this is the model that the Greens propose for sorting out the Electoral Finance Act. And it’s the model that Labour has only reluctantly agreed to and National wants to throw out.
Incidentally No Right Turn notes that, in one instance at least, the Electoral Finance Act is doing exactly the job it is supposed to (although it took some good work by the Standard to bring it to the public’s attention).
Politicians should take note; there is a new answer to some of the toughest questions of our times. When presented with an issue with no obvious popular and sensible solution, or a situation where a legislature is unable to make progress on an important topic, 100 random citizens can be called on to solve the political puzzle, as they did in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario.
Read the whole article (it’s short) for an explanation of how and why citizens’ assemblies work.
The citizen assembly model is what deliberative democracy theorist Archon Fung calls a “minipublic,” that is “…an educative forum that aims to create nearly ideal conditions for citizens to form, articulate, and refine opinions about particular public issues through conversations with one another.” It is one of few processes where the shared values of the public are directly applied to policy recommendations, rather than guessed or assumed by privileged individuals—sometimes with their own agenda.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
In the course of my work on Vote for MMP campaign in Ontario last year, I was fortunate to meet about a dozen of the 103 members of the Ontario Citizens Assembly on the Electoral Reform as well as Jonathon Rose, who lead the education effort for the ‘OCA’.
What fascinated me about the process is that it is supposed to be what we ALL do: Look closely at an issue, debate the merits of competing solutions, and develop a consensus as a conclusion.
The reality is that only a tiny minority of us do anything remotely like that. The Citizens Assembly process is a way to bring people into the decision making process who have no vested interests beyond those shared by all voters and citizens.
Conservative parties don’t like these assemblies as their gut preference is for dictating any solution. Democracy is something they tolerate provided it gives the the power to dictate. In this context, National’s hostility to MMP is comprehensible and all but inevitable. They aren’t able to put the interests of all voters ahead of their own. It’s not how the conservative mind works.
The Citizens Assembly process will be seen to be a good thing here, too, if allowed to happen.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
It is one of few processes where the shared values of the public are directly applied to policy recommendations, rather than guessed or assumed by privileged individuals—sometimes with their own agenda.
…………………………
Section 59 anyone?
September 12th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Exactly, jh. If the section 59 legislation had been discussed and debated rationally, with full access to both expert and lay opinion, I’m betting the law as passed would not be very different from what it is, and would have 90 percent acceptance from the start.
September 12th, 2008 at 7:53 am
You wish.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:02 am
The law as it is makes mild smacking illegal leaving discretion for punishment at the hands of the police.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:32 am
“Conservative parties don’t like these assemblies as their gut preference is for dictating any solution.”
Rubbish. Please back that up or withdraw it.
I have no real problem with a citizens assembly, it is a democratic way of working out the electoral system independently of MPs, who have a vested interest. The objection people have to this particular assembly set up by Labour is that the experts in charge of it have been picked by Labour, and some people feel they are biased towards state funding of political parties and other measures that although Labour and the Greens may support, the rest of us do not. The problem is not that it is a citizens assembly, but that the advice they are given and therefore the conclusion they come to may be biased in favour of the left-wing view. Had those in charge of it been selected by a cross-party consensus, rather than hand-picked by Labour, this objection would disappear.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:43 am
The real problem here is that the Nats are no less biased than Labour. If they really wanted to show leadership, they’d do the bi-partisan thing themselves, pick a “balanced” panel and commit to the citizen’s forum process. Instead they have promised only to cancel the whole thing, repeal the EFA and take us back to the previous unworkable situation.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
jh: The way I read the original Crimes Act 1961, it is illegal to assault anyone - including children. Section 59 was only ever a defence a charge of assault laid by the police. So police have always had the discretion to charge for assault and assault on children has been illegal since at least 1961.
Your comment merely demonstrates how much ignorance there is about both the old law and the new.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Citizens assemblies are a brilliant idea. Giving democracy back to the people? Who would be against it, apart from those who are afraid of handing control of an issue back to a public who has time to reason and come to their own conclusions. Introducing them on issues such as electoral reform, where the MPs have a clear conflict of interest is a great place to start. They could then be tested and used more widely, perhaps as an adjunct to the select committee process…
As for s59.
“So police have always had the discretion to charge for assault and assault on children has been illegal since at least 1961.”
In practice the s59 defence meant that a great number of what were clearly assaults were never attended, and further were never investigated, and of those a further number were never prosecuted, and of those a large number were never convicted. It was for this reason that the bill was introduced.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Mr D has a point about the picking of the experts…sounds like at one or two would’ve been picked anyway, but still.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
StephenR: The people on the Ontario Citizens Assembly in Canada were more than capable of navigating their way through attempts by any advisors to predetermine the outcome. The CA received thousands of written submissions and heard hundreds of oral submissions in something lie 40 cities over most of a year. They represented every strain of opinion and thought on the topic under consideration and the CA members took those views away and debated them and asked questions and tested the evidence robustly.