I don't get it. Citizens elect MPs for this very purpose. There is no reason to think that a group of randomly selected citizens will have a different political outlook than the people they elect into office.

[–] Longpork3@lemmy.nz 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I guess the difference is that a "jury" would not be worrying about the optics WRT their their election cycle. I would prefer that a panel of impartial experts be involved rather than random citizens though.

[–] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 days ago

By listening to experts, organisations and impacted people, this group of citizens works together to find common ground and set the policy direction for the politicians to respond to.

I think the idea here is to tamper the expert opinion with real world lived experience.

This is covered in the FAQ, the talk-fest one:

More recently, Citizens' Assemblies have been used by the Irish to navigate tense issues like marriage equality, or by the French in the wake of the Yellow Vest protests. In New Zealand, a group of randomly selected Aucklanders used a Citizens' Assembly to set a course for their city's water infrastructure. Their four recommendations were adopted by the Watercare Services board.