I have been following the Paris Citizen's Assembly (CA), which is the first INSTITUTIONALIZED CA of our time--so exciting! That means it will be an ongoing part of Paris government. Here is an excellent podcast describing how that is happening-- https://realdemocracynow.libsyn.com/the-paris-citizens-assembly-0
I have listened to this podcast several times and seem to pick up something new each time. The interviewees are 3 experts who helped Paris design and organize their CA: Anouch Toranian, the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Yves Dejaeghere, the Executive Director of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy, Europe and Claudia Chwalisz, leader of innovation in citizen engagement with the OECD. All are building the Paris CA from experience gained from other (non-institutionalized, one-off) CAs , for example the ones that happened in Ireland and Belgium.
Regarding Bob's comment below--the Paris Deputy Mayor details how citizens were selected--begins at around 17:00 minutes in the podcast. The organizers first selected citizens randomly by using a combo of voter lists and citizen cards. 700 names were pulled by lottery and then they were further narrowed to 100, which represented the population by ages, demographic groups, etc. (Interesting that the Paris CA wants citizen representation from age 16 up.)
Looking forward to meeting on Thursday and hearing about others' interest in this!
Excellent writing! One thing to consider — the sortition process for jury selection is marred by the prosecution and defense getting to vet the potential jurors. Some way needs to be found to vet the citizen assembly members, but it should be very minimal, preferably by age and residency status and not much else, similar to the initial screen for jury selection.
Excellent, thoughtful commentary, Tevan!
I have been following the Paris Citizen's Assembly (CA), which is the first INSTITUTIONALIZED CA of our time--so exciting! That means it will be an ongoing part of Paris government. Here is an excellent podcast describing how that is happening-- https://realdemocracynow.libsyn.com/the-paris-citizens-assembly-0
I have listened to this podcast several times and seem to pick up something new each time. The interviewees are 3 experts who helped Paris design and organize their CA: Anouch Toranian, the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Yves Dejaeghere, the Executive Director of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy, Europe and Claudia Chwalisz, leader of innovation in citizen engagement with the OECD. All are building the Paris CA from experience gained from other (non-institutionalized, one-off) CAs , for example the ones that happened in Ireland and Belgium.
Regarding Bob's comment below--the Paris Deputy Mayor details how citizens were selected--begins at around 17:00 minutes in the podcast. The organizers first selected citizens randomly by using a combo of voter lists and citizen cards. 700 names were pulled by lottery and then they were further narrowed to 100, which represented the population by ages, demographic groups, etc. (Interesting that the Paris CA wants citizen representation from age 16 up.)
Looking forward to meeting on Thursday and hearing about others' interest in this!
Excellent writing! One thing to consider — the sortition process for jury selection is marred by the prosecution and defense getting to vet the potential jurors. Some way needs to be found to vet the citizen assembly members, but it should be very minimal, preferably by age and residency status and not much else, similar to the initial screen for jury selection.