By Jody Koehler

Councilors from Iceland have turned in the first draft of their new and crowd-sourced constitution. 

They used hundreds of contributions from the Web—which they solicited on the government’s website and on social media sites—to construct the country's new governing document. 

Sociable.co reports: 

The new constitution went through 16 revisions, all of which were posted online for Icelanders to read and comment on. These drafts cover topics from Human Rights, Parliamentary Elections, Foreign Policy, and the role of the President. 

…

Describing the process of interacting with Iceland’s population of 320,000 people, as well as the wider internet audience council member and professor of political science at Bifroest Unioversity, Eirikur Bergmann said to the AFT news agency: “It is messy. It is completely messy. But take your average legislation in your average parliament in your average country. That’s messy as well.” 

Makes sense that Iceland would go this route, considering it is the European leader in Internet penetration; 97.6 percent of its adult population is online. (In the U.S., the number is approximately 77 percent.)

Source: http://www.prdaily.com

See also: