It is good practice to look back on your own work in the last bit before the summer recess. Where could the critic fail his own test? It is with mixed feelings that I reread my enthusiastic column about the so-called citizens’ consultation. During the formation, a proposal was put on the table to get citizens to think about pressing issues. The citizens’ deliberation or forum would be a test of democratic renewal and a correction to the rusty company in The Hague. I got carried away with that, but this week the second chance presented itself. Minister Rob Jetten (Climate) has announced the initiative to start a citizens’ consultation, about his own climate policy.
The fact that Jetten has come up with this can be called a success for Eva Rovers. She wrote a promotional pamphlet about civil deliberations. You can hardly have missed it because of the talk shows and the interviews, and I learned a lot from it too. The pamphlet is called Now it’s up to us – Call for real democracy. That immediately sounds pretty populist, and it is. At Rovers there are the politicians, who only think about the short term and allow themselves to be mobbed by lobbyists. And there are the real people, who do care about the long term, about their children and grandchildren.
They will put that into practice in a public consultation. A group of about 150 citizens, selected by lottery, tackle a complex issue in open dialogue. What is immediately noticeable is that Rovers already knows the outcome, because that is where her pamphlet starts. We have to solve the climate problem in great haste because the narrow-minded politics is not doing it. She’s actually not interested in the citizen influence at all, it’s about the marbles, the result. The same applies to Jetten, who is seeking broader support for what has already been laid down in his coalition agreement, to be climate neutral by 2050. In other words, the shortcoming of politics means that Jetten is not getting enough of his hands on his intentions.
At first glance, such a civil deliberation is quite sympathetic. Thanks to the draw, Josse de Voogd who dropped out can also participate. And why shouldn’t citizens take direct responsibility, the jury trial is based on the same principle. Like politics, criminal law revolves around practical moral issues. We already have a lay board for the same reason, and after all, Mrs Van der Wal doesn’t know much about nitrogen either. But on closer inspection, there is a decisive difference with criminal law. There, a case begins with a corpse and a suspect. There is no discussion about the corpse. There is no case without a corpse, that has been the case since the Middle Ages.
But where is the body at the civil deliberation? There is no undeniable fact that marks the beginning of the deliberations. The subject of climate is put forward by Minister Jetten, in consultation with the House. The civil deliberation may then determine the penalty for society. You can safely predict that more vigorous intervention will be necessary. Not because I distrust the experts who will come to tell me that the situation is hopeless. This is because there is no other problem for the citizen deliberators at that time. The climate is the only issue and that requires intervention.
This is how activists think about it, such as Extinction Rebellion, which Eva Rovers has joined. The judge also only has one question on the table, the one before us, for example in the Urgenda case in which the state was sentenced to reduce CO2 emissions more quickly. Civil deliberation and judge are like the hedgehog in the parable of the hedgehog and the fox. The hedgehog can do one great thing, his quills. The fox must be able to do many things to outwit its prey. Politicians are a fox and have to weigh up pros and cons, benefits and costs in all kinds of issues. The argument that politics should play chess on many boards at once has always been raised by opponents of the referendum. Now that it’s about climate policy, you suddenly hear a lot less about difficult political considerations.
Everything depends on a good research question, Rovers also writes in her pamphlet. She’s right about that. What you put in comes out again. A public consultation on climate neutrality in 2050 will yield something completely different than a consultation on the question of how many inhabitants the Netherlands should have in that same year. It’s called ‘garbage in, garbage out’ these days. Whoever controls the agenda and the procedure has the power. For example, the future of Defense could well be a subject for citizens’ deliberations. A matter of life and death, and there is also a treaty that we do not abide by. But yes, it lacks a Johan Vollenbroek, Marjan Minnesma or Eva Rovers who are committed to more tanks or howitzers.
In my previous piece about the citizens’ deliberations, with the wisdom of now irresponsibly enthusiastic, I was seduced by the professor of public administration Frank Hendriks. He took part in the Brenninkmeijer committee, which issued positive advice on the citizens’ deliberation during the formation. A condition for success was, Hendriks told me, that the result of the deliberation would be presented to society. This should be done through a referendum. You already understand. The word referendum does not appear in Minister Jetten’s letter to parliament about the citizens’ deliberation. In fact, it was precisely this last week that the House of Representatives made short shrift of its intention to introduce the binding referendum. Have a nice holiday.