‘Citizens’ juries’ are an attempt to subvert democracy
A “citizens’ jury” has overwhelmingly backed a move to legalise assisted dying. This, we are informed, is important, though why that should be the case isn’t clear. These “juries” have no higher legal status, being merely a more invasive form of polling.
They are neither convincingly representative, with just a tiny number of people taking part, nor specialised. Nobody in the group was a recognised expert on medicine or medical ethics. Yet legislators are being invited to take note of their conclusions (20 out of 28 agreed the law should be changed) and, presumably, act accordingly when the issue arrives in Parliament. The people – all two dozen of them – have spoken.
There is nothing wrong with organising a panel of citizens to thrash out difficult issues, just as there is nothing wrong with a group of friends going to the pub and setting the world to rights.
A problem arises when such initiatives are represented as more important or more influential than their actual status affords them.
The organisers of this particular jury, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, undoubtedly hope that their efforts will be recognised and will prove useful to MPs and Lords who have to make the final decision. But there is a degree of arrogance here that has to be addressed. Even the name – citizens’ jury – invites us to associate what is essentially a focus group with a more formal forum to whose opinions our elected representatives must listen. But there is no democratic accountability or legitimacy here.
Citizens’ juries are just one example of discontented activists taking advantage of political indecision in order to pressure our parliamentarians into doing the “right thing”. It is not a cleaner, purer level of debate simply because it is above the dirty game of politics.
They are simply another tool used by organisations and their public relations specialists to promote an agenda. If Parliament won’t do what they want, perhaps a citizens’ jury can be put together to come up with their preferred conclusion.
As an MP, I resisted the increasingly voluble demands for a relaxation of the law on assisted suicide. My reasons were similar to most other opponents of the move: if ever there were justification for applying the too frequently used phrase, “slippery slope”, this was it.
Would vulnerable people become unwilling victims to the process? Would older relatives feel pressured by the guilt of expecting long-term, often expensive palliative care as an alternative to a swift injection on the say-so of the local GP? And indeed, during my terms of office, the issue rarely raised its head, and never to the point where we might be expected to vote on legislation.
Out of office, with more time to consider the issue and free from the pressures of constituents to move my position in one direction or another, I slowly changed my mind on the issue, as is every citizen’s right.
I now look on the case – and in particular on the individual instances of distressed victims of fatal illnesses – with a greater degree of sympathy. That’s not the same as a 180-degree turn; it’s more a greater willingness to consider other perspectives and to soften my previous hard line.
Many of our current cohort of legislators will have gone, or are going through, a similar process, no doubt overwhelmed by the amount of information, opinion and emotion that this issue has already generated.
But the debate on assisted dying must take place in the chamber of the Commons, by people who have been democratically elected to make such decisions, not in the private conference room of a large charity or think tank by people randomly chosen by an algorithm.
And when MPs finally vote, the voices that should ring loudest in their ears must be that of their constituents, and their own consciences.