A DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSOR BRICE DICKSON,
FORMER CHAIR OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
DR. MATTHEW MENDELSOHN,
DEPUTY MINISTER OF THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT
FREE LIVE WEBINAR & PANEL DISCUSSION
Unlock Democracy and openDemocracy.net, in association
with Mishcon de Reya Solicitors and LexisNexis, are pleased to invite you
to a free live seminar on 21 February from 10.30am-12pm.
The seminar brings together practitioners, policy makers and commentators
to explore the experiences of involving citizens in previous constitutional
reform processes in Canada and Northern Ireland, discuss the practicalities
of what worked and what didn’t, and ask what lessons can be learnt
over here.
Why is constitutional reform important?
There has been concern for some time about the growing disconnect between
people and politics. Turnout is consistently low – hovering around
the 60% mark and the RSPB now has more members than the three main political
parties combined. Increasingly a democracy is seen as somewhere you live
not a process you participate in.
None of this is particularly new. What has changed however, is the political
will to engage with democratic renewal issues. One of the first things
that Gordon Brown did as Prime Minister was to launch the Governance of
Britain green paper and seek to start a national conversation about the
way that we are governed. David Cameron established the Conservative Party’s
Democracy task force shortly after he became leader and Nick Clegg has
called for a UK Constitutional Convention.
Constitutional reform in the UK has traditionally only involved the elite,
more recently this has then been ratified by a referendum. This is the
first time, at a UK level, that there has been an attempt to engage citizens
in a deliberative event to explore a constitutional issue.
There is now a real chance of change but one of the key questions remains
how this should be achieved? Given that there is widespread mistrust of
politics and politicians how can public cynicism – the sense that
this is just another consultation – be challenged? The Government
has proposed a Citizens Summit on a British statement of values but how
should this be run?
Just because we haven’t done it, this doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been done! and Canada and Northern Ireland have both successfully involved citizens in constitutional reform. In Canada a number of provinces including British Columbia and Ontario have run Citizens Assemblies to determine if the electoral system should be changed and if so what the new system should be. What lessons can we be learnt here? Northern Ireland have experienced first hand a model of involving citizens in creating a Bill of Rights, which Brice Dickinson has agreed to share his experiences on in this exclusive one off Webinar.
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofLaw/Staff/ProfessorBriceDickson/
What ‘Unlock Democracy’ want from the
seminar?
We are hoping for a thoughtful debate about what does and doesn’t work in citizen engagement. The initial idea was very much that by showcasing international case studies we could help politicians, civil servants and journalists better understand what can be achieved. We want to change the nature of the debate so that rather than can this be done, the question asked is how can this be done? We are also interested in opening up these debates beyond those who can attend the meeting. The fact that it is being broadcast on the web and can be interactive is very exciting for us.
"Creating a consensus
for democratic reform is challenging
but not impossible and there are
a number of examples worldwide that have got the
balance correct. All
of these involve governments letting go of the process."
"The UK government can learn important lessons from these
examples
with
a view to reinvigorating its own Governance of Britain agenda.
We hope
this seminar will prove inspiring."
Peter Facey, Director Unlock Democracy
| 10:30 am | Welcome
and introduction - John Jackson Chairman of Mishcon de Reya, board member of openDemocracy.net and Unlock Democracy |
| 10:35 am | Dr. Matthew Mendelsohn Deputy Minister of Intergovernment Affairs and Deputy Minister for Democratic Renewal in the Ontario Government speaking about the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform |
| 10:50 am | Professor Brice Dickson Former Chair of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission speaking about the experience of involving citizens in creating a Bill of Rights |
| 11:05 am | Stephen Hesford MP Michael Wills' PPS at the Ministry of Justice with Peter Thompson, senior civil servant at the MoJ speaking about the experience of involving citizens in creating a Bill of Rights |
| 11:20 am | Q&A |
| 11:50 am | Close - John Jackson |
The presentation and discussion on constitutional reform is presented by:
Unlock Democracy (incorporating Charter
88) is the UK's
leading campaign for democratic renewal.
www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk
openDemocracy.net provides independent
news, commentary and
analysis supporting Democracy and Human Rights.
www.opendemocracy.net
