The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy, a new body of the UK parliament, provides evidence and recommendations that outline how the parliament can better serve its citizens through technology. Recognizing the diverse opportunities that technology provides for creating more open, collaborative forms of governance, the Speaker’s Commission will address a range of issues, including the legislative process, citizen engagement, representation, and evaluating the work of government.

Over the next few months, the Speaker’s commission will be collecting evidence on the first of these themes: making laws. The legislative process stands to change immensely as digital democracy becomes a reality, and the Speaker’s Commission wants to know what the public thinks are the greatest opportunities for a tech-empowered parliament.

To structure their call for evidence, the Commission has asked a few questions. Could technology improve access to the legislative process? Should technology be used to consider citizens’ opinions when crafting legislation? What are other parliaments doing with technology to make the legislative process stronger?

The Commission, which is made up of MPs and civil society representatives, will provide guidance on how the parliament can become more open and participatory through the use of technology. These recommendations will be based in part on the feedback and comments they receive during their open call for evidence.

If you have thoughts on these topics or valuable information to share, you are encouraged to submit evidence to the Commission via email or through the web forum. 

(Photo credit: screenshot of Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy website)

Thanks to Ariana Tuckey for assistance in drafting this post.

Around the world, parliaments, governments, civil society organizations, and even individual parliamentarians, are taking measures to make the legislative process more participatory. Some are creating their own tools – often open source, which allows others to use these tools as well – that enable citizens to markup legislation or share ideas on targeted subjects. Others are purchasing and implementing tools developed by private companies to good effect. In several instances, these initiatives are being conducted through collaboration between public institutions and civil society, while many compliment online and offline experiences to help ensure that a broader population of citizens is reached.

The list below provides examples of some of the more prominent efforts to engage citizens in the legislative process.

Brazil

Implementer: Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
Tool: e-Democracia platform

Description: The e-Democracia platform offers simple web 2.0 tools to allow citizens to interact with lawmakers on specific issues, helping to connect Brazilian citizens to national lawmakers across thousands of miles of geography. Citizens can use the portal and social media platforms to engage Congressmen, mark-up legislation, and propose and debate solutions to policy problems. The platform has facilitated cross-country dialogue among disparate groups and has thousands of active users. It has also improved legislative transparency.

Website: http://edemocracia.camara.gov.br/
Additional Information: OpeningParliament.org Case Study

Click here to read more.

As a member of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee, the Philippines is uniquely positioned to be a highly visible leader on open government. However, the legislature’s failure to pass a freedom of the information bill has brought this role into question.

So, what’s going on in the Philippines?

In the parliament, bills on internet freedom, legislative crowdsourcing, and parliamentary openness have all been introduced this summer. The other branches of government are also turning increasingly towards technology to improve governance. All this suggests that the Philippines’ role as an open government leader may be back on track, but only if this summer’s promising work is sustained.

Click here to read more.

This article originally appeared in Spanish at the blog Sesión de Control. It was translated into English for OpeningParliament.org. The author is the Librarian-Archivist for the Parliament of Spain and the webmaster of www.congreso.es.

It’s time to examine some of the projects undertaken by parliaments to engage society in parliamentary proceedings. This article will examine initiatives in the Basque, Galician and Cantabrian regional parliaments as well as the “E-democracy” initiative from the Parliament of Brazil.

“It’s time for civil society,” wrote José Ignacio Torreblanca, referring to the fact that within the current crisis in confidence in Spanish society, there is a positive element emerging through the mobilization of society across organized platforms, cyber activism initiatives, and collectives that reflect the common good.

As Gonzalo Cavero commented, “Civil society is advancing much faster than institutions or governments; as a result, democratic representatives have been pressured into and are now required to redefine their relationship with the public.

In undertaking this redefinition, it would be a strategic mistake to attempt democratic reform using only the efforts of the same actors who are identified by society as part of the problem. However, for a better democracy, politics in is an essential condition of these institutions. So how can we best reconcile the tension between citizens and traditional institutions?

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