The Westminster system of the Executive Cabinet being embedded in Parliament grew from the need to route executive power away from the monarch while leaving the King with ceremonial authority. This is in contrast to the Washington system which separated the Executive entirely from Congress. The Westminster system, as practiced in Britain, also contains the upper house as a left over from the period when the King-Lord-Commons form of political philosophy dominated. Wentworth proposed this model for NSW when the colony was seeking self-government. Deniehy famously pilloried this illiberal model of government. Reform for the House of Lords in Britain is a common form of discussion, a new think-tank and advocacy group for a modern House of Lords has recently been formed, the Lords Reform Institute. They are proposing a sortitionist model.

Sortition

Sortition is the process of choosing public officials by lot. This is not a new technology, we have been using sortition to choose jurors for quite a long time now. Where this technology has not had traction is in selecting members of the three branches of government, Executive, Legislative or Judicial.

One of the arguments against sortition is that the parliamentary positions require specialists. This argument is true for the judicial branch, which often requires a great deal of legal knowledge to fully function efficiently, but in the legislative branch many members are professional politicians or party members, rather than specialist legislators.

The rise of lobbying in the US as the special interest legislators is a good example of politicians outsourcing the legislative process. This has accelerated in recent years as re-election requires more and more money in the US system. The Washington system of discipline in Congress has recently taken on Westminster characteristics, where legislation is made in the senior party leadership with party discipline - and threat of fiscal retribution - are used to ensure the party votes as a block.

An argument for sortition is the increasing education of the citizen population. When the American Republic was founded there was a great education gap between the elites of the time - Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison etc - and the regular citizen.

Today that gap is much smaller and many are as well educated, if not better, than the current leaders such as John Howard, George Bush or Tony Blair.

Due to British Columbia's [Canada] embrace of sortition for the creation of legislation that led to a referendum, we know have empirical evidence of public perception and reaction toward sortition in this context. Campbell Sharman writes;

The news media were initially skeptical about the ability of 'ordinary people' to become familiar with the complexities of electoral rules and their parliamentary consequences but, as the Assembly's meetings progressed, the tone of media reporting moved from mild condescension to admiration both for the substance and the tone of the Assembly's discussions.

The faith in 'ordinary people' being able to make decisions on complex political issues had been overwhelmingly endorsed. The public goodwill towards the Citizens' Assembly process was perhaps its most important achievement.

There was another curious emergent effect of using sortition and that was many voters cast ballot in the positive on the basis that they trusted the judgment of the 'ordinary people' in the Citizen's Assembly.

This is in direct contrast to Australia's experience in federal referendums where a campaign to 'not trust the bastards in Canberra' often works - and for good reason.

Lords Reform Institute Model

The Lords Reform Institute [LRI] contains their guide to reforming the house of lords which espouses the principles of improved representation and upper house independence. Given the hereditary and appointed nature of the House of Lords, any improvement in the selection process will increase democratic participation and outcomes in my opinion.

The LRI raises an important question relating to liberty;

There is a second question of principle involved, namely that of personal freedom. Jury service is compulsory, and any compulsion curtails the freedom of the person being compelled. We justify this in the case of jury service by saying the civic duty thus rendered is so valuable that it justifies taking perhaps a few weeks of their time.

The LRI solves this issue by removing the requirement for compulsion. They also argue for making service in a House of Jurors (to replace the house of lords) attractive with benefits such as good pay, advisors, administrative support and family relocation subsidy.

CFC Sortitionists

Sortition proved popular in South Sea Republic's recent Constitution Fun Challenge where readers were given the challenge of creating a constitution. There were four final entries, three of which were focused on the Australian Federal Government, with one state constitution for Queensland which currently lacks an upper-house. Of the four entries, three included sortitionist elements.

The interesting aspect was that those three applied sortition in different areas; I chose the house, adam chose the Senate and alan chose the executive to be chosen by lot.

Since the LRI is focusing on the upper-house, which in a bicameral parliamentary system is the only check and balance on the Executive from the legislative branch, it might be a good time to revisit adam's model.

4.

4.1 Small house of review

4.2 At least 20 members must be appointed by sortition from a pool of citizen nominees

4.3 At most 3 partisan and 3 non-partisan members may be appointed by the government of the day

4.4 Passes bills with a simple majority

4.5 The Legislative Council must be smaller than the Legislative Assembly

4.6 May not vote on money bills

4.7 May summon witnesses as before a court of law, and may delegate this power to committees

4.8 May instruct the Commission of Audit to investigate

4.9 Members serve for one year, but may choose to extend that service to 3 years

4.10 Any member may serve in the Legislative Council at most 10 years

4.11 Members are dismissed if they are

a. Convicted of a criminal offence

b. Dismissed by a two-thirds supermajority of the Legislative Council, which

is then confirmed by a simple majority of the Legislative Assembly

4.12 Members must be electors

This model is interesting in that it mixes appointed specialists with sortitionists. The issue of blocking supply is firmly in Australian Constitution memory and adam solves this by disqualifying the Legislative Council from voting on money bills.

The ratio of appointees to sortitionists is deliberate as well, as a super-majority can dismiss a councilor. A unanimous vote by the sortitionists can stop this process.

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