Authority in a state governed by the rule of law is limited by law, especially its supreme act, the constitution. How can citizens shape the content of this fundamental act? Are the current mechanisms in the Republic of Slovenia sufficient or is there an opportunity for greater inclusion and thereby strengthening democracy in the country? In my master’s thesis, I try to answer these questions. First, I present the purpose of involving citizens in amending the Constitution. I examine the existing procedure for amending the Slovenian Constitution and the role of citizens in it.
Further, I estimate that the three forms of citizen involvement that are currently enshrined in the constitutional revision procedure (the people's initiative, public debate, and referendum), rarely actualize in practice, so I assess the possibilities for strengthening the role of citizens in the process of amending our fundamental act. Therefore, I review various ways of involving citizens in the constitutional revision process: in the form of a constitutional revision popular initiative, a public debate phase, a constitutional revision referendum, and the direct involvement of citizens in a constitutional revision body. Based on the presented options, I estimate that citizens' assemblies (one of the forms of citizen involvement in the constitutional revision body) offer an interesting opportunity to strengthen citizens' role in amending the constitution. Citizens’ assemblies supplement the weaknesses of the established mechanisms by enabling a broad and informed discussion with representative groups of randomly selected citizens. Furthermore, I assess the opportunity to implement this democratic innovation in Slovenia in the form of a climate citizens' assembly. My goal is to identify new forms and improvements to the existing forms of involving citizens in amending the Constitution, which would help increase public trust in democratic institutions and strengthen democracy in the country.
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