ITJ 2013

Dubrovnik, May 27 31 2013 IUC

An e-Democracy platform
Marko Sui, dipl. iur. Ivan Voras, PhD

Problems of today division of power in Croatia?

Voters choose only election lists, predetermined by political parties Votes are divided among candidates with higher places on the list (D'Hondt method) There is no possibility of choosing which people from lists are preferred MP's with majority elect the government, government then selects members of legislative working groups

1. work group
Work group proposal

2. Government
Ministries coordination

Government proposal

3.Parliament

Problems of today division of power in Croatia?

Legislation work groups prepare text propositions which pass through government "tweaking" before parliamentary debate Parliament majority usually approves given legislative propositions without enough debate Prime minister usually controls his party and thus majority of the parliament. Very strong concentration of power in hands of a few Public deliberation is rudimentary, and public have little interference in the political process

Light at the end of the tunnel

Today there are already developed tools for achieving e-democracy like crowdsourcing public policies and liquid feedback All of this is long way ahead for Croatia, but we must start somewhere We have chosen to build upon existing legal and technical infrastructure and thus to promote use of e-democracy tools Project is flexible enough to be upgraded in later stages to e-voting

What changes with e-democracy?

Internet changed the rules of communication and decision making There are user interface experiences from social networks that we can use in order to improve the democratic process

Project: Legislation 2.0

We have developed a tool that can be useful for collaboration on text documents in legislation working groups In the first step,the Government would still choose their experts, but we would give them an environment for transparent discussions The idea is to have experts from relevant fields deliberate when proposing certain legislation (ratio legis) through e-platform with experts appointed by the government Experts would deliberate public policies and create pressure on government to explain their prepositions

1. work group
Radna skupina

EXPERTS

Work group proposal

2.government
Government proposal

3.parliament

Who are the experts?

all reasoning that is not based on mathematics is based on the relation of cause and effect, and all knowledge of this of cause and effect arises entirely from experience Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, David Hume If we would take Hume's thesis as a foundation of all knowledge, then it is possible that everybody can be an expert in area of his experience In order to identify someone as an experts we need to know his/hers area of experience, both in formal education and work/life experience

AAI@Edu public infrastructure

AAI@Edu.HR is a national authentication system for academic institutions, integrated with the eduroam system Quick access to a large number of users whose qualifications are already known, and can be translated to initial reputation points
The "reputation" will be modified as the users interact among themselves

Initially, this allows us to set up a platform to talk about the educational system reforms

Employment e-certificate database

All workers in Croatia used to have employment certificates similar to driving licence (for pensions and social security) Ministry of working relations is switching to e-certificates databases with employment history data in one place (similar to CV) We can use both these databases to create initial user reputation as an expert

Government e-citizen project

Croatian government initiated project that will give e-identity and secure authentication for connecting with government services Every citizen will also receive personal mailbox for all e-communication from government Even if it is not intended, all these technologies can be used other way around for communication from citizens toward government Such public infrastructure is already used in Estonia for voting in general elections through internet and is considered a proven technology

Basic tenets
We (should) have ways to verify the user's credentials and work experience
We translate these into "reputation points"

Expert users earn their status by combining education data, and "reputation" from their interaction with other users Every input is important and will be recorded
Enables upgraded accountability of policy makers

Expert users should be heard the "loudest" in the discussion

Everyone should have the chance to be heard and participate according to his abilities That does not mean everyone should write legislation

What about non-experts?

General public (non-experts) would observe the process and get an opportunity to educate and inform themselves about topics under discussion This process would be a combination between distance learning and deliberative polling If public disapproves of certain proposals, government might give up certain unpopular moves or expect further pressure from the public Non-experts could be informed enough to make a decision about who will represent them in specific areas

Future: Liquid democracy ?

Is neither direct or representative democracy in the strict sense All legislations can be divided in categories Every voter can vote directly for certain proposals or choose his representative for that category who will vote for him In this way, credible experts would receive voting rights from all people who would entrust them with their votes

Liquid democracy vs Beppe Grillo concepts

Grillo advocates direct democracy but does not appear in the media or participate in any discussions or in any confrontation of views Request that parties must be eliminated because they are the source of all evils Wants to cut the number of parliamentarians in half, and reduce their pay He effectively channels a general frustration from the apathy into anger Uses populist rhetoric about "a new, direct democracy that will see the elimination of all barriers between the citizen and the state (Casaleggio)

(as described by Inoslav Beker)

We advocate liquid democracy, a system which would ideally upgrade political rhetoric as close as possible to scientific level of rational debate Parties should remain as a nonbinding circles of like-minded individuals Increase number of parliamentarians to all capable citizens with some area of expertise We want to channel a general frustration about politics into proactive creation of public policies Goal is not only to give more power to the people, but to educate and inform them so they can make responsible decisions and return legitimacy to political process

Current project status

Completed the support for:
Basic document editing (individual articles / parafs) Article history analysis (diffs) Voting and commenting on different article versions Voting for whole documents/legislative proposals Transfering of votes to other users User categorisation (experts, ordinary users etc...) AAI@Edu.HR login

We can bring up new instances of the web application as-needed

Screenshots

The list of accessible documents

The new content stream (Facebook-like), includes new text and comments

Screenshots

Text differences (diff)

Bla

Short-term goals
Finish minor features, finish the graphical design of the user interface Offer third parties access to this system to perform testing and review Deploy in the academic environment (as phase 1) Implement a mobile (smartphone) version Implement an intelligent e-mail notification system for content changes

Voting infrastracture can be used in all entities where it is possible for stakeholders to vote, for instance political parties, labour unions, NGO-s...

Ending remarks
The main challenge for the citizens wanting to participate in this kind of politics is to be aware, as much as it is possible, of their own reasons and motives for thinking a that a certain belief is true If such a citizen could realize the difference between decisions based on group prejudices and desires and his own authentic and informed decisions, he would be free from propaganda activities "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power." quote by Thomas Jefferson