There
have been instances where the public has been involved
in drafting constitutional reforms and in identifying
areas which the government should focus on.
The first contemporary instance
was in British Columbia (Canada) in 2004, but more
recently the Irish Constitutional Convention in 2011
was put together to consider a number of potential
areas of constitutional reform (more).
In 2013, Iceland brought together
a 25 person convention to discuss and draft changes
to the constitution. Most interestingly, this process
involved considerable use of the internet and social
media to circulate ideas and to get feedback from
the wider Icelandic public (more).
Both these processes involved
members of the public in a large meeting as at least
one stage in the process. However, the Icelandic experiment
involved the general public through the internet,
in a similar way to that proposed as part of this
process here.
Leading up to
September 2015, the City of Paris administration (Mairie
de Paris) conducted a vote to select which from
a short list of civic projects should be given the
go-ahead. This is similar in the idea of an on line,
public vote on policies, but of course the shortlist
was generated by the City of Paris, not by the participants.
At the moment, Zurich uses fingerprint
recognition software to enable citizens of the Zurich
canton to submit questions to elected politicians.
The politicians are not only expected to respond,
but the quality of their responses is used by parties
in assessing which politicians are the best ones to
promote.
And in the UK? Well, there is
a Government Digital Strategy, and Action 14 of this
is to "use digital tools and techniques to engage
with and consult the public". This is a bit piecemeal
at the moment - there is an On
Line Policy Making Toolkit, but nothing as integrated
as what we are proposing here. It is great to see
that the UK Government is certainly thinking along
the same lines, though, and we look forward to exploring
whether there are ways in which we can support each
other to make things better for everyone.
It is clear that this sort of
idea is in the air, and becoming more and more prevalent....
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