Citizens’ Assemblies: What, Why, and How

A citizens’ assembly is a body of people selected at random from the general public to consider a specific issue and make recommendations. The process combines the fairness of random selection with structured learning, facilitated deliberation, and formal decision-making.

The defining features are sortition (random selection), descriptive representation (the group mirrors the population), informed deliberation (members learn before they decide), and mandate (the recommendations go to a decision-maker who commits to responding).

Citizens’ assemblies have been used in Ireland to address abortion and same-sex marriage, in France on climate change, in Scotland on independence, and increasingly across the Global South. They consistently demonstrate that ordinary people, given time, good information, and a fair process, are capable of making nuanced, considered recommendations on complex policy questions.

For South Africa, citizens’ assemblies offer something particularly significant: in a democratic system that has struggled to translate formal participation rights into meaningful citizen voice, the assembly model creates a new channel that is structured, inclusive, and directly connected to decision-making.