“Democratic innovation cannot do without a rigorous methodology and constant evaluation”

Lhe repeated crises that we are experiencing today, whether energy, climate, social or health, inevitably plunge us into a pivotal time when the tools of traditional representative democracy no longer allow us to respond to current challenges and difficulties. and to come. Added to these crises is the democratic crisis. The imbalance between the executive and the legislature weakens the latter.

In many countries around the world, citizens’ mistrust of politicians and the decline in political participation, analyzed in particular through the increase in electoral abstention and the decrease in partisan support, continue to increase and represent a major political challenge to legitimacy. This distrust of citizens towards representative democracy must be considered as a deep and urgent problem.

Throughout the world, and for more than twenty years, initiatives have been put in place to test new forms of democracy. Several of them have also demonstrated their relevance, such as the Irish Constitutional Convention, which is a mix of citizens and parliamentarians, at the initiative of adopting marriage for all. These experiments can take different forms, but many of them involve citizens drawn by lot and work, through deliberation, to adopt ambitious decisions regarding the colossal issues facing our societies.

Citizen draw

It is in this context that, since 2021, the Brussels Parliaments have set up deliberative committees bringing together deputies and citizens around a theme to issue recommendations. For eighteen months, five of these commissions have already worked on crisis management, 5G, work-study training, biodiversity and homelessness. As the Belgian Constitution grants decision-making power only to elected officials and not to citizens, these commissions can only issue recommendations, but with the obligation for the deputies to report on the follow-up they have given to them. One of the many particularities of the deliberative commissions lies in the drawing of lots for citizens, carried out from a register of inhabitants over 16 years of age, without condition of nationality.

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If this democratic innovation was able to see the light of day, it was because it was the subject, upstream, for ten months, of long and meticulous construction work with all the political groups of the majority and the opposition. This essential step made it possible to establish together the principles and above all the way in which this process would be organised. To support this reflection, we have also called on experts in citizen participation, from the academic world and associations.

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