*Declaration of interest: I am the research director of the Convention (in a voluntary capacity). Last weekend, the Constitutional Convention completed its work. At its closing dinner last Saturday, the snappy slogan on the menu summed things up well: ‘100 members, 10 meetings, 1 constitution’. With a budget of some €900,000 and a deadline of…
Posted by Elaine Byrne As part of a class project on deliberative democracy and the Constitutional Assembly, these are the views of the Comparative Political Reform, Senior Sophister Class, Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin Brief Background Statement A renewed focus on the nature of the democracy in the aftermath of the Arab spring and…
By Bill Kissane. There are different ways of involving the public in higher law making. Constitutions can be drafted by constituent assemblies or constitutional conventions directly elected for that purpose. Constitutional change can result from extraordinary public debates outside the formal representative arena, when a majority of the people back radical change. Alternatively, the people…
Posted by David Farrell (written by James Gilmour) Following the financial crisis, demonstrations and riots outside the Parliament (Althingi), early elections in April 2009, and a significant change of government, the Icelandic Parliament voted on 16 June 2010 to set up a directly elected Constitutional Assembly “for the purpose of reviewing the Constitution of the…
Irish Politics Forum 