Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Who judges citizens juries? I ask because this morning's ePolitix news alert states that "The prime minister and health secretary Alan Johnson highlight measures to improve the NHS. Ministers are set to attend each of nine 'citizens' juries' events taking place around the country. "This is not just a listen and learn event. It's more engage and involve," said Johnson. "This is a look towards the next 10 years and actually delivering a health care system that is focussed completely on patient care that moves away from the structural reorganisations that we have had in the past.""
How do we find out where these citizens juries are taking place? What are the questions are they have been asked to assess? Can other members of the public - or the media - observe them? And what are the outcomes? Even if they are much better described as "forums" rather than juries (see Ed Miliband) these questions hold their force. The Prime Minister used his Green Paper to suggest that Citizen Juries would become a means of reconnecting the public with government, that their aim is to build public confidence and a sense of participation in the system. Gathering a representative sample of citizens to deliberate and feed back their views can be a simple, vivid and democratic way of assisting policy. But for this to happen the events themselves must be designed as part of a public, visible process - just like the jury in a court of law.
Considerable weight that has been placed on citizens juries as devices to overcome public disengagement from politics. They cannot succeed in doing this unless they have some autonomy and independence. At the moment it looks as if they are being deployed just as marketing gimmicks, or, to be fair, as road-testing policy development. Please let us know the evidence to the contrary.
