Constitutions aren’t born every day, and getting a glimpse into the inner workings of the process of crafting a nation’s governing document is even more rare. The U.S. Constitution wasn’t drafted in a complete vacuum, but the details of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 weren’t exactly publicly available at the time. For more details about the drafting of our Constitution from the Library of Congress webpage, click here.
But today in Iceland, a small country with a population of about 330,000, a brand new Constitution is being drafted in front of the watchful eyes of the worldwith the help of crowdsourcing advice through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
“The country’s 25-member constitutional council is posting draft clauses on its website and inviting the public to comment on them there or on its Facebook page. And their comments are actually being incorporated into the document. The council also has Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr accounts and is streaming all of its meetings live.” Full story here.
Citizens of Iceland can register with their name and address to be able to make public comments and suggestions on the draft through the Constitution’s webpage. To see Iceland’s new draft Constitution, it is available online in Icelandic and in English (through Google translate). The Google translate can be a bit muddled, but you’ll get the general idea of the draft language.
For more about comparative Constitutional Law in the CSL library, try HeinOnline’s new World Constitutions Illustrated database here, or browse the library’s online catalog for the subject Comparative Government or Constitutions.
~ Lyn Batty~
