When I was young, judges did not need to be trained as lawyers, but that was phased out because it was decided that the technical burdens of knowing the law were so great that every judge had to start off as a lawyer. I think that now that AI is coming to the fore, we should rethink that. True, there were major mistakes by untrained judges that prompted this change, but AI is so pervasive now that there is not as much need to have every judge have the same, un-diverse background. The main problem this would address is the huge backlog in the courts. The old saying that “justice delayed is justice denied” has pretty much gone out the window, the court is nothing but delay, delay, delay. I have seen it myself, mostly what they seem to be doing in court cases is finding a date when all parties can get together to hold the case. Then I read old, 20th Century novels (I’m thinking of P.G. Wodehouse stories, of course) and observe with dismay that back then it was routine in those days for minor cases like drunk and disorderly conduct to be tried the next day.
The NEXT DAY!
Why can we not do that now? Why are our standards so low that we have forgotten that? Trump has corrupted the entire American court system so effectively because it is so constipated and blocked up that any change, no matter how crooked, is accepted without a peep. The original democracy of Athens had the solution, but it is forgotten. Rotating sortition. First of all, make every job possible to be done by a “middling” worker (that is, easy enough to be done by the average person off the street. That is what makes a civil service democratic. That is what we lost when “credentialism” ruled out untrained lawyers for consideration as judges). Then limit their time of office, then select randomly, which “sanitizes” the process from exactly what Trump did to the U.S. Supreme Court. I think that AI is a gift of God to enable us to bring democracy into the 21st Century.
An open letter by Eric Jourdain and the CaP Démocratie collective to the president of the parliament of Wallonia published in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir (machine translation):
Mr. President,
The crisis of democracy we have been experiencing for several decades is serious and profound. Serious because it results in the rise of populism, which reminds us of the 1930s leading up to the Second World War.
This crisis is profound because the very foundations of our political system are at stake. Today, a large portion of the population feels poorly represented, or even completely unrepresented, by political parties. An IWEPS survey indicates that 80% of Walloons no longer trust politics.
It is the quality of citizen representation, over which political parties have a monopoly, that is at stake. This monopoly has existed since 1830, but the world has changed a lot in the meantime.
Yet, with a few exceptions, the political world seems hardly concerned about this situation. Improving our system of governance and the way citizens are represented within our institutions do not seem to be a priority.
A Necessary Shock Therapy
The problem is profound, and to remedy it, we need shock therapy, an institutional upheaval. Faced with the partycracy that is plaguing our country, as Mr. Prévot put it, how can we break with this system?
We demand the establishment of a true bicameral system with a second assembly completely independent of the first, and we propose that it be composed by drawing lots. This method of representation has proven itself in ancient history but also in the 21st century. Isn’t it said that in a democracy, the people are sovereign? This sovereign should always have the power to make their voice heard and thus command respect. Voting once every five years is no longer sufficient. Continue reading →
James Fishkin, creator of deliberative polling, was recently interviewed by Roger Berkowitz on the podcast of the Hannah Arendt Center (which Berkowitz directs). The conversation is far-ranging, and discusses many of the most prominent deliberative experiments over the past 30 years. At the end, they discuss the difference between citizen assemblies and deliberative polls. The podcast can be found here: https://hac.podbean.com/e/can-deliberation-cure-democracy-with-james-fishkin-bonus-episode/
In a recent article in The Catholic Herald Niall Gooch discusses some objections to sortition from the book Against sortition?. As he describes sortition, “[t]he idea is that involving “normal people” in such deliberation helps to spread power more widely and obtain broader perspectives”.
The contributors to the book set out various reservations about this idea, and various objections. Many of them have procedural concerns – for example, they believe that existing approaches don’t gain a wide enough spectrum of opinion, or that they are easily captured by special interests, or that they don’t really add anything new to a conventional elected legislature.
Others highlight the problems of accountability raised by citizens’ assemblies, or the way in which they dilute the legitimacy of existing bodies. But a few contributors are clearly trying to articulate something like the more fundamental problem identified by John Paul II, which we might sum up with this question: “Does involving lots more people in political decision making actually get you closer to the truth?”
Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality. Fundamentally, democracy is a “system” and as such is a means and not an end. Its “moral” value is not automatic, but depends on conformity to the moral law to which it, like every other form of human behaviour, must be subject: in other words, its morality depends on the morality of the ends which it pursues and of the means which it employs. If today we see an almost universal consensus with regard to the value of democracy, this is to be considered a positive “sign of the times”, as the Church’s Magisterium has frequently noted. But the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. Of course, values such as the dignity of every human person, respect for inviolable and inalienable human rights, and the adoption of the “common good” as the end and criterion regulating political life are certainly fundamental and not to be ignored. Continue reading →
“The Citizen Assembly for Norway’s Future” (Framtidspanelet) was a 56 member body of Norwegian citizens selected through what has become the standard “citizen assembly” process and that convened in the period Januray through May 2025. The report associated with the body describes it as being “initiated by seven civil society organizations”, those organizations being Save the Children, Norwegian Church Aid, The Norwegian Children and Youth Council (LNU), Caritas, WWF World Nature Fund, Langsikt – centre for long term policy, and Framtiden i våre hender. I was not able to find a more specific description of how the initiative for this body came about.
The body’s mandate was apparently associated with Norway’s oil fund – a national fund accumulating oil revenue which holds today almost $2 trillion. Continue reading →
Here’s a news item from Arts Professional, which describes itself as the “the UK’s leading independent arts publication for industry professionals.” The article describes how “Emma Harvey of Trinity Community Arts and LaToyah McAllister-Jones of St Pauls Carnival – both based in Bristol – have teamed up with Citizens in Power to create the first citizen-led cultural delivery plan” using a Citizens’ Assembly. I must say, I found this article long on waxing poetic and short on concrete details. And the Athenophile in me was much pained by the description of sortition as a “Roman” practice. Anyway, here’s the link:
In 2024 The Conservative Woman magazine had two articles on the issue of citizen assemblies. A column writer was opposed to the idea and presented the standard right wing objections (basically, these are just tools by the government to promote its unpopular lefty agenda). However, a piece by a citizen who took part in an assembly was very balanced and interesting.
TCW now adds another column to this topic, echoing the ideas of the first 2024 column.
As faith in government and institutions declines, citizens’ assemblies are pushed as the solution to the perceived democratic deficit. According to the UK parliament website, ‘a citizens’ assembly is a group of people who are brought together to learn about and discuss an issue or issues, and reach conclusions about what they think should happen.’ Defined in such benign, layperson’s language, what could possibly go wrong?
The House of Commons contracted three organisations (Involve, Sortition Foundation and mySociety) to run Climate Assembly UK on its behalf. According to the Sortition website, this is the process (quoted verbatim):
Select a broadly representative bunch of people by lottery.
Bring them together in an assembly, typically at small tables or groups, and let everyone have their say.
Have those most knowledgeable about, or affected by, the issue address the assembly, bringing in diverse viewpoints and proposals.
Get the participants to discuss, listen and talk to each other – and give reasons for their opinions.
Decide! On what is the best way forward.
Call me a cynic, but I suspect manipulation at each of these stages. Continue reading →
I am looking for folks who support the sortition + deliberation movement in general but want to put a stronger focus on making changes at the national and international level. I don’t want to restart the debate on which way is best – from the top or from grassroots. I simply want to find like-minded people. Send an email to dshaffer@lander.edu if interested.
Glenn Greenwald is a former constitutional and civil rights lawyer and a prominent independent journalist, most famous for breaking the Snowden revelations about U.S. government surveillance.
In a recent segment on his show, Greenwald takes U.S. vice president J.D. Vance to task for claiming that U.S. supreme court is subverting the “democratic” will of the U.S. voters to deport all illegal residents from the country (as expressed in the election of Donald Trump to president) by putting up legal barriers to some deportation efforts implemented by the Trump administration. Greenwald rightly points out that Vance’s claim is obviously manipulative. The U.S. system has from the outset, deliberately and explicitly, set up various restrictions on what elected officials can do, and in particular legal challenges to executive policies have always been used, including, of course, by Republicans, to block popular policies.
When presented this way, all of this is the standard grist for the liberal mill. Politicians pretend to be concerned about the anti-majoritarian nature of mechanisms that they like to utilize in their favor when it suits them. “We”, good liberals who stand for civil rights and the rule of law, should be grateful that such mechanisms exist whether or not we support deporting illegal residents. Such mechanisms make sure that government is not despotic and that majorities do not oppress minorities. Specifically, a proper procedure for deporting illegal residents is already in place and is not in any way obstructed by the courts. We should all insist that this procedure is followed whether or not a majority of the voters wish to and thus it is good that the U.S. has anti-majoritarian procedures in place. Continue reading →
James Fishkin, creator of deliberative polling, was recently interviewed by Roger Berkowitz on the podcast of the Hannah Arendt Center (which Berkowitz directs). The conversation is far-ranging, and discusses many of the most prominent deliberative experiments over the past 30 years. At the end, they discuss the difference between citizen assemblies and deliberative polls. The podcast can be found here: 
Adam Cronkright
Ali
Ahmed R. Teleb
avanderven
avergne
Alex Kovner
azakaras
Brett Hennig
campbellwallace
Simon Threlkeld
Nick Coccoma
codyhipskind
Common Lot Sortitionist
Conall Boyle
constitutionalism
davidschecter
graytmatter
gtridimas
H.J. Hofkirchner
John Burnheim
jgarry20151
Jochen Krattenmacher
johnedwardtaylor
johnhuang865
Jonathan Crock
keithsutherland
Jacob Richter
kkoreilly
lukewhito
SimonPek
Nathan El
Nicholas Gruen
Owen Shaffer
Patrick Chalmers
Paul Gölz
peterstone
Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
pronfeld
Emil
rcaze
richwbrown
Roger Knights
roslynfuller
Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
shaharavin
tbouricius
Ted Wachtel
Joshua Laferriere
theodorestathis
towardsautonomyblog
Wayne Liebman
Yoram Gat
Oliver Milne
Equality by lot 