公民對話‧審議民主

Ethan J. Leib，一位美國推動審議民主的法學學者，在一篇名為「中國共產黨與審議民主」的文字中，就2004年末在中國杭州所舉辦的一場審議民主會議，記錄下
了這樣的看法：

Third, and most bizarre, was the universal condemnation of Taiwan. Not a single Chinese participant had anything good to say about a country/territory that China treats as its own, and which has successfully democratized. Although there is a reasonable cause for suspicion that aspects of the administration of Taiwan's democracy may be corrupt, Taiwan is still a polity with a Confucian heritage that has run a number of national competitive elections and is far along the road to deep democratic reform.

Indeed, Taiwan is engaged in a very serious experiment in deliberative democracy proper. The Taiwan national government has culled a citizen panel composed of a "random" sample of self-described "undecideds" on the issue of the decriminalization of surrogate parenthood. Taiwan's Department of Health expects the law drafted by the panel to be ratified by the national legislature within a year. Although only 68 persons applied to be part of the 20-person "random" sample, this Taiwanese citizen panel had a virtually unprecedented amount of political power: its deliberations produced binding law. The unanimous disrespect afforded Taiwan at the conference by mainland Chinese democratic reformers was a bit hard to digest.

Excerpted from Ethan J. Leib (2005) "The Chinese Communist Party and Deliberative Democracy", Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 1. (http://services.bepress.com/jpd/vol1/iss1/art1）

（感謝poiesis提供資訊）