The Constitution Unit Blog

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Coronavirus
  • Brexit
  • Parliament
    • House of Commons
    • House of Lords
    • All
  • Elections and referendums
    • 2019 general election
    • 2017 general election
    • EU referendum
    • 2015 general election
    • All
  • Democratic Engagement and Citizens’ Assemblies
  • Government
    • Cabinet manual
    • Coalition
    • Special advisers
    • All
  • Devolution
    • Scotland
    • Wales
    • Northern Ireland
    • England
    • All
  • Events
  • Other themes
    • Judiciary and human rights
      • All
    • Parties and politicians
    • Constitutions and constitution making
    • Freedom of information
    • Monarchy, church and state
    • International
  • Staff contributors
    • Meg Russell
    • Alan Renwick
    • Robert Hazell
    • Sam Anderson
    • Dave Busfield-Birch
    • Roberta Damiani
    • Lotte Hargrave
    • Lisa James
    • Rebecca McKee
    • Luke Moore
    • Honorary staff
      • Daniel Gover
      • Bob Morris
      • Patrick O’Brien
      • Akash Paun
      • Brian Walker
      • Alan Whysall
      • Ben Worthy
      • Ben Yong
  • Constitution Unit website
  • About the Constitution Unit
  • Copyright

Tag Archives: Brussels Capital Region

Permanent joint committees in Belgium: involving citizens in parliamentary debate 

Posted on May 28, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

Citizens’ assemblies are increasingly used in the UK and around the world to examine difficult policy questions. But they are typically ad hoc and therefore heavily reliant on political good will – prompting the question of whether they can be built into policymaking processes more systematically. The parliament of Belgium’s Brussels region has just launched an experiment in doing exactly that. Elisa Minsart and Vincent Jacquet describe the changes that have been introduced and consider their chances of success.

Amidst wide public disillusionment with the institutions of representative democracy, political scientists, campaigners and politicians have intensified efforts to find an effective mechanism to narrow the gap between citizens and those who govern them. One of the most popular remedies in recent years – and one frequently touted as a way to break the Brexit impasse encountered by the UK political class in 2016-19 – is that of citizens’ assemblies. These deliberative forums gather diversified samples of the population, recruited through a process of random selection. Citizens who participate meet experts, deliberate on a specific public issue and make a range of recommendations for policy-making. Citizens’ assemblies are flourishing in many representative democracies – not least in the UK, with the current Climate Assembly UK and Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland. They show that citizens are able to deliberate on complex political issues and to deliver original proposals. 

For several years now, some public leaders, scholars and politicians have sought to integrate these democratic innovations into more traditional political structures. Belgium recently made a step in this direction. Each of Belgium’s three regions has its own parliament, with full legislative powers: on 13 November 2019, a proposition was approved to modify how the Parliament of the Brussels Region operates. The reform mandates the establishment of joint deliberative committees, on which members of the public will serve alongside elected representatives. This will enable ordinary people to deliberate with MPs on preselected themes and to formulate recommendations. The details of the process are currently still being drafted and the first commission is expected to launch at the end of 2020. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, drafting and negotiations with other parties have not been interrupted thanks to an online platform and a videoconference facility.

This experience has been inspired by other initiatives organised in Belgium. In 2011, the G1000 initiative brought together more than 700 randomly selected citizens to debate on different topics. This grassroots experiment attracted lots of public attention. In its aftermath, the different parliaments of the country launched their own citizens’ assemblies, designed to tackle specific local issues. Some international experiences also inspired the Brussels Region, in particular the first Irish Constitutional Convention (2012–2014). This assembly was composed of both elected representatives and randomly selected citizens, and led directly to a referendum that approved the legalisation of same-sex marriage. However, the present joint committees go well beyond these initiatives. Whereas both of these predecessors were ad hoc initiatives designed to resolve particular problems, the Brussels committees will be permanent and hosted at the heart of the parliament. Both of these aspects make the new committees a major innovation and entirely different from the predecessors that helped inspire them. Continue reading →

Posted in International, Parliament, Public Engagement and Policy Making | Tagged Belgium, Brussels Capital Region, Citizens Assembly of Scotland, citizens' assemblies, Climate Assembly UK, Coronavirus, deliberative democracy, democratic engagement, digital democracy, Elisa Minsart, G1000, Irish Constitutional Convention, parliament, parliamentary procedure, Vincent Jacquet | 1 Comment

Taking Back Control

Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland

Monitor 76: Democratic lockdown?

My Tweets

Enter your e-mail address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by e-mail.

Join 2,343 other followers

Unit Mailing List: Sign up to receive notifications of of our events, newsletter and publications

Mailing List

The Unit at 25: celebrating 25 achievements

Parliament and Brexit

Improving discourse during election and referendum campaigns

The Independent Commission on Referendums

Blog at WordPress.com.