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Since 2019, the German-speaking community in Belgium has carried out a deliberative experiment involving citizens in decision-making processes, a model that, according to the former head of the regions parliament, could be adapted to other government levels.

The deliberative model in the German-speaking community, a small region with legislative powers in the east of Belgium, consists of citizens assemblies deliberating on topics chosen by a permanent citizens council, which is in charge of managing the process.

So far, citizens drawn by lot were called to deliberate on four themes: care for the elderly, inclusive education, affordable housing, and the challenges of digitalisation. The assembly is now asked to address the issue of migrants integration, the last panel of the current legislature before next years elections.

I am quite sure that we will continue the experiment in the next legislature, said Karl-Heinz Lambertz, former president of the regions parliament and member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Citizen dialogue has become one of the pillars of our activity, he said.

According to Min Reuchamps, a political science professor at Universit Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), the deliberative process of the region has the distinctive feature of having a permanent citizens council, setting it apart from similar experiences taking place in other European regions.

The citizens council consists of people who have participated in the citizens assemblies and who serve in the council for 18 months.

This body has two missions. It sets the agenda for the citizens assembly and it monitors the work of the citizens assembly after it has done its recommendation, Reuchamps explained, adding that the monitoring phase is particularly important to make sure recommendations are implemented.

Lambertz said the process has so far been successful, although time- and resource-consuming, and that the parliament launched a process to improve the legal basis of the exercise.

One of the main issues is the under-representation of young people and marginalised community members in the citizens assemblies and the permanent council.

The parliament is currently working to make sure the population is well represented in terms of gender, age, and background. However, Lambertz said that we will always struggle to touch a certain public that is already far away from political life.

The best way is that the people who took part in the process talk about it and motivate other people, he added.

According to Reuchamps, although the process can be improved, the experiment is very recent and realising its full potential will take years.

We are still very much in the infancy of this process, so we should still give it time.

Meanwhile, the eastern Belgium model has already been adopted by the neighbouring German city of Aachen, where a citizens assembly with a legal basis and permanent organisational structure was established in 2022 and will start deliberating later this year.

Asked whether this deliberative model could be applied at a larger scale as well, Lambertz said the shortest answer is yes.

Deliberative democracy can work at all levels but needs to be done professionally and with all the necessary means in place, he said, adding that deliberative experiments need to be adapted to the government level at which they are carried out.

Reuchamps agreed that the process needs to be contextualised.

Its very important that each community, each city, each region, each country, when they do something like this, make sure that its tailored for them, he said.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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Deliberative democracy in eastern Belgium: A model to scale up? - EURACTIV

Ellen Brostrom| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I have had the privilege of serving as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge for nearly 14 years. I am also half of the only mother-daughter judicial duo in Wisconsin history. My mother, Justice Pat Roggensack, has been on the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 2003 and served as Chief Justice from 2015 to 2021. I am writing to share my opinion that former Justice Dan Kelly is unfit to occupy her seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Like my mother, I am a judge who follows the law and upholds our constitutional rights. I have served alongside Judge Janet Protasiewicz as a colleague in Milwaukee for almost a decade, and I know her abilities as a jurist and as a community leader. She is the better choice for voters this April 4.

As judges, we take an oath to support the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Wisconsin. Instead of supporting our constitutional rights, however, Kelly has worked to undermine the constitution and our democracy. He has never served as a front-line judge, and instead most recently served as a legal advisor to the Republican Party of Wisconsin as it implemented the fake elector scheme, part of a multifaceted conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

More:Bice: Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly was paid $120,000 by Republicans to work on 'election integrity,' advise on fake electors

In the United States, we proudly elect our leaders. Our leaders do not install themselves. Our entire democracy indeed, the very idea of America is built on this bedrock constitutional right. Whatever our flaws and shortcomings, America, and Wisconsin specifically, has been a city on a hill for the peaceful transition of power.

Instead of peaceful transition, however, since the last presidential election, the country has been subject to a massive fraud designed to convince fellow citizens that the election was stolen. It seems the losing side led by President Trump, Fox News, and his allies believes the results should be overturned by any means necessary. To that end, they have intentionally lied to the American people and conspired to keep Trump illegally in power.

Kelly assisted in this scheme, and that makes him unfit to serve on our states highest court.

Our nations history is the story of the franchise being extended, from white male landowners to all white men, to Black men, to women, and so on.People have died in the struggle to secure the right to vote.At every stage, there has been violent resistance to extending our democracy to all. People have been willing to murder and terrorize others to suppress their right to vote. And, indeed, President Trumps conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election culminated in violence, as the hallowed halls of our United States capital were invaded by insurrectionists. Law enforcement officers died. Dozens were wounded. The peaceful transition of power that has held fast since the Civil War was sullied but not broken.

More:'These guys are up to no good': Wisconsin fake elector fretted plan would 'fail miserably'

This conspiracy continues to be an existential threat to our nation. The question is: are we going to remain a democracy, or are we going to become an authoritarian state? In my view, the risk is that grave.

I believe we all have a patriotic and moral obligation to vote against candidates who have helped this conspiracy along, even if we are not fully comfortable with their opponent or would not vote for them otherwise.Kelly helped this conspiracy along, working to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. That is not conservative, and it is not American. Kelly is unfit to serve on our highest court. I hope you join me in voting for Janet Protasiewicz on April 4.

Ellen Brostrom is a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge first elected in 2009.

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Democracy is at risk by sending Dan Kelly to Wisconsin Supreme ... - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Recently, there was much consternation about Judge Kacsmaryk's decision to delay posting notice of a hearing. Indeed, a coalition of media organizations actually argued that this decision could violate the First Amendment! Ultimately, the proceeding went as planned, with no disruptions or incidents. There were protests outside. And the event was widely covered by the press. Thankfully, democracy did not die in the darkness.

Throughout this entire process, I chuckled. People who had zero experience with federal district court litigation suddenly became experts. In reality, trial judges have vast discretion over their dockets and courtrooms. In any normal case, this sort of request would never have raised an eyebrow. And the information would have never leaked to the press. But, with the abortion ad-hoc nullification machine at maximum power, all the usual rules are ignored.

If you'd like some evidence of how much power judges have to keep their proceedings secret, consider the sidebar conference. Generally, everything a judge says is in open court. But the judge can ask the parties to "approach" the bench, at which point the judge and attorneys can have a private conversation that the witness, jury, and other parties cannot hear. Some courts have noice-cancelling devices that make it impossible to even hear anything. (The district court that I clerked in did not have that technology, and was very small, so the parties were asked to speak low, but not too low so that the court reporter could not hear them.) Generally, the court reporter transcribes these proceedings. But sidebars may be redacted from the public transcripts.

A particularly egregious exercise of sidebar-redaction came during the Harvard affirmative action trial in Boston federal district court. Jannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard, writes about what happened in Judge Allison Burroughs's courtroom. During the trial, the judge held lengthy sidebar discussions with counsel, and declined to release those matters in the public transcript. Indeed, those sidebars were not initially included in the record that was transmitted to the United States Supreme Court!

The secrecy would continue. Gersen filed a letter with the court, asking to unseal the sidebars. Judge Burroughs held two hearings about which sidebars to unseal. And the public was barred from those hearings! Only the other attorneys could attend. Gersen, who had made the initial request, was not allowed to attend that hearing. Gersen later attended a public hearing about unsealing those transcripts, where the judge announced the rulings. (The judge had already told Harvard and SFFA what her rulings would be at the prior sealed hearings.) Lawyers for Harvard objected to releasing the information, even as the case was pending before the Supreme Court! Why?

Harvard argued vigorously against unsealing certain sidebars, reminding the judge that concern about "the press gallery" was the reason she had sealed some discussions in the first place and maintaining that she should keep them sealed "because of the increased or the continuing public attention on this case."

Imagine that. A district court limiting some access to the public in light of "continuing public attention."

Apparently, the Supreme Court became concerned by the incomplete record, and asked for the sealed proceedings. Recently, the District Court sent the Supreme Court a "password protected and encrypted" thumb drive containing sealed materials. And what was Judge Burroughs trying to keep secret? A crass joke about Asian-American college applicants.

Thomas Hibino worked at the Boston location of the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. William Fitzsimmons is the Harvard Dean of Admissions. In 2012, Hibino emailed Fitzsimmons an attached memo:

On November 30, 2012, amid a friendly back-and-forth about lunch plans, Hibino e-mailed Fitzsimmons an attachment that he described as "really hilarious if I do say so myself!" Hibino explained, "I did it for the amusement of our team, and of course, you guys"presumably Harvard admissions officers"are the only others who can appreciate the humor." The joke memo had been written on Harvard admissions-office stationery, during the earlier investigation. It was purportedly from an associate director of admissions and parodied the admissions officer downplaying an Asian American applicant's achievements. The memo denigrated "Jos," who was "the sole support of his family of 14 since his father, a Filipino farm worker, got run over by a tractor," saying, "It can't be that difficult on his part-time job as a senior cancer researcher." It continued, "While he was California's Class AAA Player of the Year," with an offer from the Rams, "we just don't need a 132 pound defensive lineman," apparently referring to a slight Asian male physique. "I have to discount the Nobel Peace Prize he received. . . . After all, they gave one to Martin Luther King, too. No doubt just another example of giving preference to minorities." The memo dismissed the fictional applicant as "just another AA CJer." That was Harvard admissions shorthand for an Asian American applicant who intends to study biology and become a doctor, according to the trial transcript.

Fitzsimmons e-mailed Hibino back, "I'm stunned!" Fitzsimmons apparently believed that the admissions officer whose name was on the Harvard stationery had actually authored the memo. She "passed away a few years ago and I'd forgotten that she had such a sense of humor," he wrote. "We'll 'de-construct' at lunch. Where should we go?" Hibino wrote to clarify, "No, no! I did that from purloined stationery from your shop! Pretty convincing, huh?!!!!! I forgetare we getting together here or there?" (Through Harvard's press office, Fitzsimmons declined to comment, and calls and messages to Hibino were not returned.)

It seems the Office of Civil Rights stole stationary from Harvard, which they used to put together this awful memo. The Dean of Admissions thought the memo was funny. Justice Kagan recently mused that maybe she has no sense of humor. Maybe I don't have a sense of humor either. I'm not laughing.

And it also isn't funny that the judge tried to keep this information out of the record:

The sidebars about the memo show that S.F.F.A. wanted to question Fitzsimmons, during his courtroom testimony, about his reaction to the memo's "stereotypical comments about Asian Americans." S.F.F.A. argued that the dean of admissions was "laughing along" with a joke including Asian stereotypes. Harvard objected that the memo and Fitzsimmons's reaction should be excluded as "irrelevant," because it was "so tangentially related to anybody's credibility" or to a claim of Harvard's "discriminatory animus" against Asian Americans. Furthermore, Harvard claimed that the move to introduce this evidence was "calculated to be handed to the press" and "intended to embarrass Dean Fitzsimmons."

This information would seem to at least be relevant to the Supreme Court's consideration. But the trial judge, apparently, thought it better to keep this matter out of the record.

The Supreme Court should direct the Solicitor General to obtain the memorandum from the Department of Education. This document needs to be in the public domain.

Gersen continues:

Judge Burroughs did not think that it was fair to assume that Fitzsimmons found the stereotypes in the memo funny, and she didn't want what she saw as his "wholly ambiguous" comment to be public. "It has the potential to be explosively prejudicial, not to me because I take it for what it is, but in terms of the external world's response to this," she said. "At some point, I feel for the guy," she added, asserting that asking him about the memo on the stand would be "designed for media consumption and not for any great search for the truth." She ruled the memo and e-mails not relevant, and excluded them; if there were a jury, it would not have heard about them. And because she also sealed the sidebars, the press and the public knew nothing of them, either. . . .

But we also know that Judge Burroughs thought that the material could "explosively" affect how the public saw the facts. So, her decision was not just to exclude the evidence but also to seal it and attempt, even long after the trial ended, to prevent the public from knowing about a federal official's allegedly anti-Asian remarks. An attorney familiar with the case told me, "Judge Burroughs mistakenly conflated admissibility under the rules with her own decision, as the fact finder, that this evidence would have no weight with her. And then, because it would have no weight, it would be sealed to prevent embarrassment to Harvard witnesses."

Are judges allowed to make decisions based on concerns about media consumption? Back to Judge Kacsmaryk. He delayed posting the announcement of a hearing till the evening before. The public still would have been able to attend, and the press could have schlepped from Dallas. It would have been harder to bus in protestors. And there was not enough time to dry-clean their Gileadian bonnets. But Kacsmaryk's position was a reasonable attempt to deal with an unknown security situation.

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Democracy Died in Darkness in Harvard Trial Sidebars - Reason

For the last three months, Israelis have been taking to the streets in the hundreds of thousands, on a weekly basis, to protest what they see as the far-right governments regime coupa plan (which it has already begun implementing) to subordinate the judicial system and change the system of governance to the point that all checks and balances on those in power are removed.

The plan is being led by a prime minister on trial for corruption in three separate cases, while Israel continues to hold millions of Palestinians under occupation with an agenda to further entrench its control. Each party in the Israeli government has specific and explicit goals that the various laws in this judicial overhaul package would serve.

For the ultra-Orthodox parties, its primarily about ensuring their constituency does not have to serve in the military. (They study Jewish religious law instead.) In 2017, Israels Supreme Court struck down a law exempting ultra-Orthodox seminary students from conscription in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on grounds it perpetuates inequality. For the Shas Party specifically, it is also about circumventing existing law to enable its head, Aryeh Deri, to serve as a minister despite several recent convictions of tax fraud.

For the religious, nationalist, racist, far-right partiesJewish Power and Religious Zionism, both headed by settlers who are now senior ministers in governmentits about extending Israeli sovereignty over all occupied territory, what they call the Land of Israel, and making public institutions more religious.

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus ruling right-wing Likud party, its also about continuing to expand Israels settlement enterprise, consolidate power over media, culture, and public institutionsand for Netanyahu, it is about assuming enough control over the courts, through appointing judges, to evade conviction.

In essence, what the parties that comprise this government all share is the determination to create and shape new laws that serve their narrow interests, even if they violate the rule of law as is commonly understood in democracies both in Israel and abroad, trample certain rights, and shatter liberal democratic norms.

In other words, they seek to legalize those illegal actions that further their interests.

Protests against the contentious judicial overhaul of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus nationalist coalition government in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 18, 2023.

Oren Alon/Reuters

The act of creating new laws in order to serve its interests on the ground is precisely what Israel has been doing for 56 years as an occupying power. Since it conquered the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip in 1967, the government, through its military and legal experts, created an entirely novel and distinct legal framework to implement long-term military rule over an occupied population that is in line with the rule of law as it always defined it, with the Supreme Courts imprimatur, and thus the norm.

The unprecedented protests taking place across the country are largely ignoring this fact. They include a range of groupstech sector employees, academics, military reservists, former politicians, doctors, LGBTQ rights activists, religious and secular Israelis, and even some settlers who identify as liberalwho are all engaged in various acts of civil disobedience the likes of which Israel has never seen.

There are a plethora of signs at the protests with all kinds of messaging, but as a whole, the protesterswho are almost exclusively Jewishhave galvanized around one main slogan: democracy.

People are screaming it in the streets, blue wrist bands are being handed out with the word, protesters insist they are trying to save it. They say they have risked their lives for a state that is Jewish and democratic and that they will not cooperate with the state if it ceases to be a democracy.

But Israels 56 year-long military occupation has systematically disregarded the principles of democracy and equality they say they are fighting for. While protestersmany of them among the most privileged in Israeli societywalk in the streets demanding the rule of law and democracy, Israeli forces are demolishing Palestinian homes; standing alongside settlers who are terrorizing Palestinians; denying freedom of movement and assembly; holding people in prolonged detention without trial; killing unarmed protesters; carrying out torture; and deporting Palestinian activists. And within Israel, Palestinian citizens face structural discrimination and inequality under an explicit policy that prioritizes Jewish rights.

The occupation is inseparable from Israel. The same government that operates Israels liberal democratic mechanisms presides over millions of stateless Palestinians, who are effectively barred from protesting their condition. The same Supreme Court that struck down a law legalizing Jewish settlement on private Palestinian land has given the green light to Israels continued transfer of citizens to occupied territory and to the siege on Gaza. That is why the Israeli human rights group BTselem defines Israel as an apartheid regime, and why Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.

One of the changes this government has already made that exemplifies just how synonymous the occupation and Israel arebut which hasnt gotten nearly as much attention as the judicial overhaulis the authority it has granted to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Smotrich, who advocates for formal annexation of the West Bank and, in late February, called for the Palestinian town of Hawara in the West Bank to be wiped out, has successfully transferred authorities that have been held by the military for 56 years into his own handseffectively becoming the governor of the West Bank. Even if protesters manage to stop the anti-democratic legislation, this step in the direction of de jure annexation will remain.

Most of those warning that Israel is at risk of becoming a dictatorshipincluding many of Israels top former security brass, among them the recent head of Israels internal security service, the Shin Bet, under Netanyahuare compartmentalizing these issues, convinced that Israel can continue to be a liberal democracy as long as it can stop this legislation. Even many of those who oppose occupation believe it will have to be dealt with separately, and at another time. Yet they are trying to save a system that was never fully democratic to begin with, while the new right-wing government they are fighting sees that undemocratic system as still overly restrictive of its own more radical ambitions.

There are, however, indications that some are starting to draw the connection between Israels occupation and the states illiberal direction. After hundreds of settlers went on a rampage burning cars and homes and attacking Palestinians in Hawara as soldiers largely stood idly by, protesters in Tel Aviv began chanting at police, Where were you in Hawara?

There is also a small but dedicated anti-occupation bloc that carries signs at the protests with messages like: There is no democracy with occupation and Democracy for all from the river to the sea. At one of the recent protests, a gray-haired woman held up a sign that may sum it up best: We were silent about occupation, we got a dictatorship.

Israelis who have bent the rule of law to suit their ideology for decades are now themselves becoming the target of a far right that is using its newly won power to bend it even further.

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Israelis Are Trying to Save a Democracy That Never Existed - The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON (AP) The Biden administration has extended invitations to 120 global leaders for next weeks Summit for Democracy, including to representatives from eight countries that werent invited to the White Houses inaugural summit in 2021.

Thats according to a senior administration official, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet to be publicly released invitations. The countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina., Gambia, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Lichtenstein, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Tanzania were extended invitations to this years summit after being left out of the invite list to the 2021 gathering.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is slated to take part in a pre-summit event on Tuesday focused on Ukraine with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

This years summit takes place next Wednesday and Thursday. It will be co-hosted by the governments of Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia. The first day of the summit will be a virtual format and will be followed by hybrid gatherings in each of the host countries with representatives from government, civil society and the private sector participating.

The world has seen big change since the December 2021 summit with countries emerging from the global pandemic and Russias invasion of Ukraine, the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II that has devastated the eastern European country and rattled the global economy.

The president will look to make the case that the events of the last year have put into stark relief that democratic government grounded in the rule of law and the will of the governed remains despite its frequent messiness the best system to promote prosperity and peace, according to White House officials.

Biden initially proposed the idea of a democracy summit during his 2020 campaign and has repeatedly made the case that the U.S. and like-minded allies need to show the world that democracies are a better vehicle for societies than autocracies.

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120 leaders invited to Biden's 2nd Summit for Democracy - The Associated Press