Tag: constitution

Icelandic Constitution Update

Iceland’s new draft of a constitution has been submitted to parliament. The drafters relied heavily on citizen comments using internet sites like Twitter and Facebook. Anyone who’s scrolled through the comments sections of just about any site open to the general public would probably worry that the ratio of good information to bad would be pretty small (a low signal-to-noise ratio). But,

“What I learned is that people can be trusted. We put all our things online and attempted to read, listen and understand and I think that made the biggest difference in our job and made our work so so so much better,” [Salvor Nordal, the head of the elected committee of citizens] said.

–Valdimarsdottir (2011): Icelanders hand in draft of world’s first ‘web’ constitution on phsorg.com

The final draft is here (the link uses Google Translate, so it’s not a perfect translation). It will be interesting to see what the parliament does with it now.

From the constitution:

12th Art. Rights of children

All children should be guaranteed the protection and care of their welfare demands.

What the child’s best interests shall always prevail when taking decisions on matters relating thereto.

Child should be guaranteed the right to express their views in all matters relating thereto shall take due account of the views of the child according to age and maturity.

–Article 12 of draft Icelandic Constitution via Google Translate.

The Modern Way to Draft a Constitution

Iceland’s drafting a new constitution. To make it more transparent and involve the citizenry, they made the draft available online and used social media, like Facebook, to get comments. The Constitutional Council even broadcast their weekly meetings on YouTube.

Suggestions from the public that have been added thus far include livestock protection and a clause that specifies who owns the country’s natural resources (the nation), …

— Kessler (2011): Iceland Croudsources Its Constitution

I’ve been having my students write their classroom constitution on our Wiki. It’s great for transparency and collaborative writing, but usually very few students are interested in looking beyond the section they write. The Iceland experiment is apparently running into a slightly different problem; well-wishers are clogging up the social media sites.

Gay marriage and civil rights

World homosexuality laws (from Wikimedia Commons).

Gay marriage is one of those current issues that allows for a fascinating perspective on civil and human rights. Although in many parts of the US racial discrimination and prejudice are still alive and pertinent, the issue has been decided; arguing for racial discrimination has no place in government policy and in the vast majority of society. The right of gay people to marry, however, still splits the country.

Terry Gross’ NPR interview with reporter Margaret Talbot is an excellent introduction to the topic based around the court case being argued in California right now. It starts with a discussion of fact that one of the lawyers arguing for marriage rights is a conservative, while the other is a liberal. This fact allows for a discussion that is much broader than a simple left-right political argument.

The interview also goes in to the role of the supreme court and its interpretation of the constitution in assuring civil rights for minorities. Loving vs. Virginia, the case striking down bans on interracial marriage, is a precedence that is key to the arguments of supporters of gay marriage.

Gross and Talbot also talk about the “orginialist” position that many conservatives take, where the Supreme Court must interpret the Constitution based on what the people who wrote it believed rather than allowing for the changes that have occurred over the past two centuries.

It’s a fascinating interview, that delves into a number of topics relating to government, courts and human rights, and uses intelligent, challenging, but not impossible language. Our next immersion trip deals with civil rights, and I plan on playing this podcast on the drive to our camping site. I suspect the students may not be too happy about this, but if it puts them to sleep, at least they’ll be well rested when we get to our destination.