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New Zealand Police Act Wiki Lets You Write the Law
PhoenixOr writes "New Zealand is now on the top of my list for cool governments. They've opened a wiki allowing the populace to craft a new version of their Police Act, the legislative basis for policing in New Zealand."
Nobody said the result would definitely be used. The wiki is just being used to get suggestions and ideas...
The wiki does not allow people to write law. It is just for citizen input.
Not so fast. They've set the wiki up with a rather short-sighted password policy: any editor can set a password on any page that can protect that page from being edited or even being seen by anyone else. I'm having difficulty finding any pages that don't have passwords set ...
Well I second that. I see no reason why the new technologies cannot help democracy to return to its roots i.e. everybody could and should take part in decision process. Just in case people forgot: partof decision making is discussion on available options, methods and leadership among other things.
Of course size matters here so the state organisations (big) cannot have their daily life led by democracy but the goals, the way to achieve them and the leadership that leads us there should be decided in a process at least approaching democratic way. What we have now in majority of western 'democracies' is a sad joke (yes I know there are people less fortunate than we are and not even majority of them live in N.Korea) based on the fact that it was not possible to vote for anything else than your representatives (who then could do what they wanted for few years). Now we have the technology to democratize our societies again - maybe we should use the chance.
If not we who would do it for us???
on a related note;
http://www.pyrsf.com/chapters/Wikiworld/Wikiworld.htm
MilkMiruku
However, if this is the start to allow citizens to write their opinions on forthcoming and existing laws, I'm in favor.
Here in the UK, the Government lets citizens write their opinions through "consultations" (either submitting to an email address, or an online forum).
However, the problem is the Government then ignores anything said. Or rather, when people reply in support, it claims it's doing what people want; when people criticise, it ignores them and still claims it's doing what people want.