Constitutional Deliberation: the Citizens’ Assembly’s contribution

The ECCL is also delighted to welcome Ursula Quill, PhD Candidate at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, who will give a paper on 'Constitutional Deliberation: an assessment of the Citizens’ Assembly’s contribution to Oireachtas debates on the Eighth Amendment'.

Chair: Cormac MacAmhlaigh

About this event

In recent years the Oireachtas has established Citizens’ Assemblies to deliberate on certain issues of constitutional and policy reform. This article focuses on how the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment considered the Citizens’ Assembly’s report as part of the initiation and agenda-setting stage of the subsequent referendum. To understand the relationship between these deliberative bodies and the extent to which the process represents designed coupling within a deliberative system, the article draws on insights from interviews with members of the Oireachtas Committee. This study finds that the Assembly’s deliberations served an important primary purpose to Oireachtas members as well as two secondary purposes. First, and primarily, the process was an example of democratic iteration, in which similar issues could be discussed in different forums by both citizens and political elites, contributing to a deeper understanding of the constitutional and legislative concerns surrounding the referendum. The Committee built on the Assembly’s deliberations and filled gaps where the Assembly had not had the opportunity to fully explore certain aspects. This iteration was evident across three main areas which were important in forming consensus around the legislative proposal: rape law, abortion pills, and fatal foetal abnormalities. Additionally, both the Assembly and Committee drew on similar expert witnesses, some of whom would become spokespeople in the subsequent campaign. Second, the Assembly’s deliberations increased the confidence of Oireachtas members and their sense of legitimacy in pursuing a largely similar route of liberalisation as had been recommended by the Assembly. Third, the Oireachtas report itself acted as a bridge between the citizens’ deliberations at the Assembly and the government’s deliberations which produced the final wording which was put to the people adding to a sense of confidence in the amendment. Finally, this article presents a theory of how deliberative democracy is fostered within constitutional referendums.

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