This page provides links to examples of Citizens Assemblies worldwide…
Citizens’ Assembly looks set for Northern Ireland
Plans for a Citizens’ Assembly for Northern Ireland are advanced and it is hoped the body will be up and running this year. The group will be made up of people picked randomly from the electoral roll, reflecting the composition of Northern Ireland society.
They will be asked to debate subjects that politicians fail to agree on. The body, made up of 99 citizens and a chairperson, will run like the assembly that currently operates in the Republic of Ireland.
Electoral Reform Society:
How to do a Constitutional Convention in the UK
This briefing first sets out what a citizen-led Constitutional Convention is, and why we need one for the UK. We then flesh out the details of a successful Convention, focusing both on the Convention itself and the public engagement process around it. We concentrate on four potentially controversial areas: remit, outcome, composition and process. Our recommendations are based on in-depth knowledge of international examples and expertise on public engagement in the UK, combined with a recognition of the particular challenges presented by a UK-wide Convention.
Electoral Reform Society:
The public can unite on the big issues around Brexit
The Citizens’ Assembly showed how Members of the Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit – randomly selected to capture the diversity of the UK population – met in Manchester to consider options for the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with Europe.
Electoral Reform Society:
Democratic innovations
Around the world people are innovating with new forms of democracy. Drawing from classical ideas of random selection and modern institutions such as juries, more deliberative and participative forms of democracy are taking shape.
A Citizens’ Assembly for the Scottish Parliament
A DETAILED plan for a new Citizens’ Assembly, acting as a second revising chamber in the Scottish Parliament, has been published by Common Weal, the Sortition Foundation and newDemocracy in a new report.
The Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit
The Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit is taking place over two weekends in September, bringing people together and broadly representing the electorate of the United Kingdom. The Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit allows members to engage in detailed, reflective and informed discussions about what the UK’s post-Brexit relations with the European Union should be.
Democracy Matters
Lessons from the 2015 Citizens’ Assemblies on English Devolution.
The Citizens’ Assembly pilots on local democracy and devolution were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom. Organised by Democracy Matters—an alliance of university researchers and civil society organisations led by Professor Matthew Flinders—and funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, the Assemblies took place in Southampton and Sheffield towards the end of 2015.
Note: page 48/49 of the report give some costings for the assembly
Citizens’ Assembly Ireland
The Assembly is a body comprising the Chairperson and 99 citizens, randomly selected to be broadly representative of the Irish electorate, established to consider some of the most important issues facing Ireland’s future.
The Assembly members will deliberate the topics as outlined in the Resolution approving its establishment, and any other matters that may be referred to it. Their conclusions on each topic will form the basis of individual reports and recommendations that will be submitted to the Houses of the Oireachtas for further debate by our elected representatives.
Iceland’s ‘pots and pans revolution’: Lessons from a nation that people power helped to emerge from its 2008 crisis all the stronger
What can our friends in the north teach us about freedom?
Philip England
Assemblies for Democracy 