Citizen Juries

Citizen juries are one of a number of recent strategies for increasing public participation in scientific and technological policy decisions. Concerns about a decline in public participation in representative democracy and a “democratic deficit” have led to a focus on more deliberative democracy. This has spurred a search for alternative venues for seeking public input. [Page 51]Citizen juries, along with consensus conferences, focus groups, polls and referenda, and citizen panels, are one such venue. The idea of creating citizen juries arose in Germany and in the United States as early as the 1970s and has gained traction as concerns about lack of public involvement in traditional representative democracy have increased. Citizen juries have been used mainly in Europe and the United States, but they have also been used in less developed countries as a means of determining public concerns, gauging public sentiment, and gaining public input on complex, often technological, environmental policy issues.

Based on the model of legal trials by a “jury of one's peers,” citizen juries bring together a group of citizens to hear information, deliberate, and offer a reasoned decision on policy matters brought before them. Unlike jury trials, however, a citizen jury's findings are not binding on decision makers. Instead, they are taken as a representation of the public-at-large's perception of particular problems facing policymakers, who then respond to the recommendations of the jury but are not bound by them.

Citizen juries generally comprise 12 to 25 citizens selected at random—within certain limits—from a pool of citizens of the institution seeking input. Citizen juries are intended to be representative but also inclusive, so the randomness of the selection is usually combined with a goal of including jurors with as complete ranges of gender, age, and background as possible. The selected citizens then spend several days in a setting that mimics a trial and are presented with a range of information by experts and interested parties. Depending on the model, the jurors may request testimony from specific parties; usually, however, the testimony to be presented is solicited in advance by the final decision makers.

Instead of a judge, a moderator or moderators serve to keep the proceedings fair and topical. Members of the jury have the opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses. Once they have heard all the testimony, the jury members deliberate among themselves and arrive at a decision, which they then report to the convening institution. The report generally includes a description of the underlying reasoning that went into the report, which allows decision makers to gain a sense of the issues and processes of citizen decision making, not just their viewpoints on a predefined issue. Unlike in a jury trial, however, the citizen jury does not make the final determination on what rules will be adopted. Instead, the decision-making institution reviews the deliberations and decision(s) by the citizen jury and takes them under advisement in its decision-making process.

Citizen juries usually serve as only one part of the effort to encourage public participation in decision making on scientific risk issues. They are intended to solicit opinions that might otherwise not be heard through other methods of public participation. They are more intense than, for example, polls or referenda. They are intended to be more representative than public hearings, which self-select for participation by those with existing interests in the issue and/or those with the ability to attend public meetings.

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