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Citizens' Reference Panel
A Citizens' Reference Panel is a non-compulsory public jury used in Canada to provide policy advice to public and elected officials. They are generally convened by the government or a public agency and typically meet several times over a period of weeks or months to learn about, discuss, and reach agreement on recommendations for how to address a contentious public issue. Citizens' Reference Panels will have anywhere from 24–54 citizens members, with equal numbers of men and women, while matching the age profile and geographic distribution of the population in the region or jurisdiction they represent. Members of a Citizens' Reference Panel are randomly invited and selected during a civic lottery process. They are considered volunteers and with the exception of reimbursements for travel and childcare, they receive no financial compensation for their time. The idea being that the time each citizen volunteers to the panel is part of a public service, such as jury duty. Much like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civic Lottery
A civic lottery, a popular term for the contemporary use of sortition or allotment, is a lottery-based method for selecting citizens for public service or office. It is based on the premise that citizens in a democracy have both a duty and the desire to serve their society by participating in its governance. Today, the most common use of the civic lottery process is found in countries which follow Common Law systems, where citizen juries are summoned to hear and render verdicts in court cases. The term for this is popularly known as jury duty. Civic lotteries are increasingly popular in Canada, where provincial Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform took place in British Columbia in 2004 and in Ontario in 2006. The membership of each Assembly was determined by a civic lottery which invited citizens to volunteer as candidates. In British Columbia, the government sent 23,034 letters to randomly identified citizens throughout the province. 1,715 replied and volunteered to serve as m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jury Duty
Jury duty or jury service is service as a juror in a legal proceeding. Juror selection process The prosecutor and defense can dismiss potential jurors for various reasons, which can vary from one state to another, and they can have a specific number of arbitrary dismissals, or unconditional peremptory challenge, which does not require specific reasons. The judge can also dismiss potential jurors. Some courts had been sympathetic to jurors' privacy concerns and refer to jurors by number, and conduct ''voir dire'' ''in camera'' (i.e., in private). In the United States, there have also been Fifth Amendment challenges and medical privacy (e.g., HIPAA) objections to this. Australia Australia uses an adversarial system, and potential jurors are randomly selected from an electoral roll. Jurors receive a small payment for each day of attendance. Employers are also required to pay their employees "make-up pay", that is, the usual pay the employee would have earned from working, les ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizens' Assembly On Electoral Reform (British Columbia)
The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system. On 25 October 2004, it proposed replacing the province's existing first past the post (FPTP) system with BC-STV, a single transferable vote (STV) system. This recommendation was put to the electorate-at-large in a referendum held concurrently with the 2005 provincial election. In order for the results to be binding, the referendum required a super-majority including approval by 60% of voters overall and simple majorities in 60% of the 79 districts in order to pass. In the event, the second of these thresholds was easily met, with a majority supporting the reform in 77 out of 79 electoral districts, but the overall vote fell short of the 60% requirement, with 57.7% of the votes in favour. Another referendum on adopting the STV system was held and defeated during BC's 2009 provincial election. History During the 2001 pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizens' Assembly On Electoral Reform (Ontario)
The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was established by the government of the province of Ontario, Canada in March 2006. Modelled on the British Columbia equivalent, it reviewed the first past the post electoral system currently in use to elect members of the Ontario Legislature, with the authority to recommend an alternative. In May 2007, the Assembly recommended, by a decision of 94–8, that Ontario adopt a form of mixed member proportional representation (MMP). The Report of the Select Committee on Electoral Reform The mandate of the Assembly was created by thReport of the Select Committee on Electoral Reformof the Ontario legislature. It was made up of Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) from the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties. The committee studied electoral systems and issued a report to the Ontario Legislature in November 2005. It recommended the Assembly be provided the latitude necessary to recommend whatever electoral system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizens' Assembly
A citizens' assembly (also known as citizens' jury or citizens' panel or people's jury or policy jury or citizens' initiative review or consensus conference or citizens' convention) is a body formed from randomly selected citizens to deliberate on important issues. It is a mechanism of participatory action research (PAR) that draws on the symbolism, and some of the practices, of a trial by jury. The purpose is to recruit a cross-section of the public to study the selected issues. Information is presented to provide a common set of facts, available options are considered and recommendations are forwarded to the appropriate authority. Some states implement only those recommendations approved in a subsequent referendum. Assemblies aim to increase public trust in the convening government by remedying the "divergence of interests" that arises between elected representatives and the electorate, as well as "a lack in deliberation in legislatures." The use of assemblies is related ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deliberative Democracy
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law. Deliberative democracy is closely related to consultative democracy, in which public consultation with citizens is central to democratic processes. While deliberative democracy is generally seen as some form of an amalgam of representative democracy and direct democracy, the actual relationship is usually open to dispute. Some practitioners and theorists use the term to encompass representative bodies whose members authentically and practically deliberate on legislation without unequal distributions of power, while others use the term exclusively to refer to decision-making directly by lay citizens, as in direct democracy. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy"). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy, in which communities make decisions through popular assembly. Today, the dominant form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracy, representative democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic was the core of work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, among whom the most important are Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G. D. H. Cole, G.D.H. Cole. Overview In direct democracy, the people decide on policies without any intermediary or representative, whereas in a representative democracy people vote for representatives who then enact policy initiatives. Depending on the particular system in use, direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing offici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sortition
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. The system intends to ensure that all competent and interested parties have an equal chance of holding public office. It also minimizes factionalism, since there would be no point making promises to win over key constituencies if one was to be chosen by lot, while elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ..., by contrast, foster it. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-Council''; the legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ..., as the ''Crown-in-Parliament''; and the courts, as the ''Crown-on-the-Bench''. Three institutions—the Privy Council ( conventionally, the Cabinet); the Parliament of Canada; and the Judiciary of Canada, judiciary, respectively—exercise the powers of the Crown. The term "Government of Canada" (french: Gouvernement du Canada, links=no) more commonly refers specifically to the executive—Minister of the Crown, ministers of the Crown (the Cabinet) and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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