- Leading academics and practitioners evaluate crucial and inter-related issues of law, institutions and people.
- The rule of law is fundamental in advancing democracy: Prof (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, VC, JGU
- Freedom of thoughts, freedom of association and protection of dissent – key fundamentals of a deliberative democracy: Prof. James S. Fishkin, Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
- The question really is where the government should be transparent and how do we analyse cost & benefit of transparency: Professor Nathaniel Persily, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, Stanford University
Sonipat: October 27, 2016: The O.P. Jindal Global University in collaboration with and Centre for Deliberative Democracy of Stanford University recently hosted an international conference that brought together leading public policy practitioners, scholars and government representatives from both India and abroad. The forum sought to facilitate critical deliberations amongst leading academics and practitioners on the subject of ‘Deliberative Democracy,’ that adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Participants were invited to evaluate crucial and inter-related issues of law, institutions and people and the plausible challenges faced by the Indian democratic system, amidst an international backdrop.
The conference enveloped six thematic sessions in total with three sessions on each day, Deliberative Democracy and the United Nations, Strengthening Democracy Through the Right to Information, Local Governance in China and India, Budgets and Deliberative Democracy, Citizenship and Policymaking, Biotechnology and its Stakeholders, Biotechnology and its Stakeholders and Democratisation in Post Conflict Setting.
Speaking at the forum, O. P. Jindal Global University, Founding Vice-Chancellor, Prof (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, observed that every democracy is unique in its own cultural heritage and key to our political decisions should be the product of fair and reasonable discussion and debate among citizens. He said, “The rule of law is fundamental in advancing democracy. Strengthening the rule of law has to be approached not only by focusing on the application of norms and procedures but one must also emphasize its fundamental role in protecting rights and advancing inclusiveness.”
“I am hopeful that the recommendations arising from this international conference will be able to contribute ideas that will help strengthen the democratic system of our nation,” He noted.
Professor James S. Fishkin, Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication and Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University, USA, who has designed practical implementations of deliberative democracy for over 15 years in various countries highlighted that public participation in the decision-making process was of utmost importance.
Stressing on the need of deliberation in democracy at a panel discussion, Prof. Fishkin, observed, “The people have their priorities and maybe the technocrats or the policy makers are ignorant of them because they have no systematic way of talking to people. Freedom of thoughts, freedom of association and protection of dissent are the key fundamentals of any kind of systematic application of deliberative democracy.”
Taking an alternate view amongst the speakers, Professor Shiv Visvanathan, Vice Dean (Institution Building), Jindal Global Law School, opined that deliberation and reasoning were insufficient and the need of the hour necessitated a cognitive approach.
“The survivor, the defeated, the marginal and the deviant can’t survive the deliberate democracy, the odds are partially stacked against them and in this context actually what we are proposing, is that deliberation and reasoning are just not enough, we need a theory of cognitive justice, because science becomes too hegemonic, too dominant in an official ideological sense. We need a right for different knowledges to survive because democracy has to be a plurality of knowledges which guarantees plurality of lifeforms and livelihoods.” He noted.
Speaking at the session on, deliberative democracy and the United Nations (UN), Professor (Dr.) Vesselin Popovski, Vice Dean and Executive Director, Centre for the Study of the United Nations at the Jindal Global Law School described the UN as a hyper-realistic state centric organization. He said, “The origin of UN was based on high idealism and meant for people not states, and how they will exercise power”
Prof. Popovski also proposed that the 15 member countries should not think about their national interest rather they should think about global citizenship at large.
Professor R. Sudarshan, Dean, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, praised the efforts of UN in judiciary, human rights, government watch and legislature as a watchdog organization but said the organization was simultaneously promoting a culture of disillusionment. “Democracy promotions happen in cultural contexts, sadly much of UN programmes happen through rich countries only. The concentration of power in few hands had made it difficult. We have reached a state of disillusionment of representative democracy,” he observed.
Speaking at a session on strengthening democracy through right to information, Professor Nathaniel Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, Stanford University, USA, said that though transparency was important, the regulations had posed a significant challenge to the US government. “Polarisation is a big problem crippling the US government. As far as I see transparency regulations, a lot of it is in relationship to the effective functioning of the US government which right now is a big problem. Whether you are talking about immigration reform or the budget or foreign policy decisions.” He noted.
Professor Persily, further observed, “The US has numerous examples of instances, where opportunities of transparency were exploited for private gain while they were originally intended for public interest. The question really is where the government should be transparent and how much transparency should there be and how do we analyse cost & benefit of transparency?”
Professor (Dr.) Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu, Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, Government of India, said, “In India political parties are by law allowed not to disclose, the law supports non-disclosure, law that accommodates no accountability. If this is the situation how does one then enforce accountability, answerability and disclosability.”
Speaking at a thematic session on budgets and deliberative democracy, Mr. Rupendra Nath Ghosh, Former Principal Accountant General, Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, spoke on the decentralization objectives of grassroots level organizations in the country and said, “Panchayati Raj is not an unmixed blessing. We should know there are very sharp inequalities. Panchayati Raj can become a tyranny of the local elite. To break that stranglehold, we have reservations for women. The decentralization objectives are that, you take governance closer to the people, empower people and bring accountability and transparency.”
“One of the most important features of deliberative democracy is that authentic deliberation must be by agents who are equal in power i.e. if you introduce levels of status and power and different capabilities into the situation it undermines the capacity for authentic deliberation, said, (Dr.) Thomas Lairson, Prof. Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities
Professor Dabiru Sridhar Patnaik, Director, Centre for Post Graduate Legal Studies, JGU, said, “This conference is a great opportunity to discuss, the different themes virtues of deliberativism and the complexities of public reason by engaging amidst different themes in relation to deliberative democracy.”
The conference is expected to be a melting pot of ideas on democracy and its institutions and likely to determine the course of future discussions and debate on the subject.
Other distinguished speaker and panelists at the conference included Mr. P. P. Choudhary, Hon’ble Minister of State for Law & Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice, Government of India, Ambassador Pavan K. Verma, former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and Mr. Nikhil Dey, Convener, The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information, to name just a few.