Articles

Parliament needs a ‘House of Citizens’

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by Ben Rogers, associate director, democracy
Financial Times - 02 May 2005

Representative democracy is not in good shape. Across the world, trust in political institutions has fallen. The trend is not universal, but it is pronounced. The last international survey of trust by Gallup found that, in every country, the national parliament was the least trusted of 17 institutions - less trusted even than multinational companies.

At least part of the problem is that the public feels increasingly disconnected from the political class. Not because citizens do not care about political matters - interest in politics has held up over the decades - but because they are made mistrustful by the drip drip drip of political accusation so evident in the current British campaign - "You lied." "No, you lied." - and turned off by the unresponsiveness of democratic institutions.

Survey after survey shows that people prize integrity, responsiveness and connectedness in politicians - they prize these things above experience, expertise or ability to deliver. But neither the political institutions, nor the political culture, promote these qualities.

To be fair to politicians, the challenges are enormous. How do you do party politics without adversarial debate and how do you do representative politics without party politics? How does a single representative connect with 60,000 increasingly irreverential and vocal constituents?

One thing seems certain. Politicians are going to have to get used to giving power away to ordinary citizens. Referendums are on the rise. And the dominant tendency in democracies - though one largely bucked by Britain - has been to devolve power to the local level.

One option, however, remains relatively under-explored. We appoint citizens at random to sit on juries. Why not appoint them to sit in parliament - or on public commissions? It sounds fanciful, but it has pedigree. "Appointment by lot" was a bedrock of democracy in ancient Athens. And in modern times, public bodies in the US, the UK and elsewhere have experimented with citizens' juries, inviting a small group of randomly chosen people to deliberate on policy options. Local government has held citizens' juries on subjects ranging from drugs policy to planning.

It is Canada, however, that is now setting the pace. In an exceptional experiment, the government of British Columbia last year set up a public commission on voting reform made up of 160 people selected at random. The Citizens' Assembly met in the evenings and weekends over 11 months, heard evidence, deliberated and arrived at a consensus. Their recommendation - that British Columbia switch from its first-past-the-post system to one of proportional representation - will be put to the electorate in two weeks. It will not be the first vote on an electoral system, but it will be the first time that voters have had the chance to choose one designed by citizens, rather than the political class.

Not every one likes proportional representation, not least the main political parties, who stand to lose their stranglehold on power. But the government, in keeping with the spirit of the inquiry, is remaining neutral on the issue. And it is seen as so successful that Ontario is launching one of its own, while the federal government is considering using the same approach to review the design of the Canadian Senate.

The UK government elected on Thursday should set up an experimental citizens' inquiry - or better still, a rolling citizens' assembly - that could look at matters of national importance. This could form something like a third chamber; a House of Citizens to support the House of Commons and House of Lords.

It is appropriate that ordinary people should make constitutional decisions - constitutions, after all, provide the terms on which citizens regulate the power of their representatives - and a British House of Citizens could have a special mandate to scrutinise constitutional matters. It could begin by reviewing options for voting or House of Lords reform, or assess the case for and against the European Union constitution. And while it should not try to compete with the House of Commons or the House of Lords in initiating or reviewing detailed legislation, it might also review such politically charged issues as immigration or energy taxes.

The intervention of a citizens' inquiry can raise a debate above the mire of party politics. But it can do more than that. By narrowing the gap between citizens and representatives and putting ordinary people at the centre of the political system, it can help restore trust in democracy.