Calling all citizens: The challenges of public consultation

Abstract: One way governments have responded to the heightened democratic discontent of recent years is to seek greater input from citizens in the policy‐making process in large‐scale public consultations. This article provides a case study of one such consultation. In the fall of 2002, the City of Saint John, faced with a sizeable budget deficit, sought public input on important fiscal decisions that had to be made before year's end. Citizens could provide their views in a traditional way ‐ by mailing in a questionnaire to city hall ‐ or they could submit their views electronically via the City of Saint John web site. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources, including interviews with city officials and a follow‐up survey of consultation participants, the authors assess the success of this particular exercise in achieving several interrelated objectives: facilitating citizen participation in public affairs, enhancing citizens' sense of their political efficacy, providing public officials with insight into public opinion, and shaping public policy. Taking into account both consultation outcomes and the expectations of citizens and officials, the authors identity key shortfalls of the Saint John consultation, as well as avenues for constructive change in future exercises. Sommaire: L'une des maniéres dont les gouvernements ont réagi au méontentement démocratique exacerbé. qui s'est manifesté ces derniéres années a été d'accroitre la participation des citoyens au processus d'éaboration de politiques en organisant des consultations publiques à grande échelle. Le présent article ést une étude de cas portant sur une de ces consultations. À L'automne de 2002, la ville de Saint‐John, faisant face à un gros déficit budgétairc, a cherchéà obtenir L'avis du public sur d'impor‐tantes décisions financiéres qui devaient être prises avant la fin de L'annee. Les cito‐yens avaient la possibilité de faire connaître leur opinion d'une façon traditionnelle en renvoyant un questionnaire par la poste à L'Hôtel de Ville, ou bien ils pouvaient soumettre leurs commentaires par voie électronique par L'intermédiaire du site Web de la Ville de Saint‐John. À partir d'une grande variété de sources de données, y compris des entrcvues avec des responsables municipaux et un sondage de suivi auprés dcs participants a la consultation, f'étude de cas évalue le succés de cet exer‐cice particulier à atteindre plusieurs objectifs interdépendants:faciliter la participation des citoyens aux affaires publiques, améliorer le sentiment d'efficacité politiquc chez les citoyens, permettre aux fonctionnaires de se faire une meilleure idée de L'opinion publiquc et façonner la politique publique. En tenant compte à la fois des résultats des consultations et des attentes des citoyens et des fonctionnaircs, nous identifions les principales lacunes de la consultation de Saint‐John ainsi que les moyens d'apporter des changements constructifs aux exercices futurs.     

Raman Microspectroscopic Mapping: A Tool for Identification of Fused Materials in Fire Debris

Examination of fire debris can provide information about the types of materials which were present at the time of the fire to give insights for fire scene reconstruction and understanding compartment fire dynamics. This paper demonstrates the ability of Raman spectroscopy for material identification postfire in complex situations, such as the production of fused masses during fire dropdown. A validated Raman spectral library is combined with Raman mapping in three fire case studies, to determine the individual materials in the fused masses formed. The case studies accessed material combinations of several common polymers. Raman mapping was carried out on a 10 μm × 10 μm square of the masses. Material identification using this technique ranged from a high of 85% match to a low of 40% match. This work demonstrated that complex masses found in the fire debris can be resolved into the individual material components for identification and spatial distribution.     

Brexit and Parliamentary Sovereignty

This note addresses the implications of R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union for the legal principle of parliamentary sovereignty, and argues that the strong restatement of the latter is the most significant feature of the decision. The aim here is to show how traditional principle in the Dicey tradition has been strongly applied against the competing claims of EU law, the royal prerogative, the referendum and devolution. However, the note also argues that the claims relating to parliamentary sovereignty could have produced a different result and that the most compelling feature of the case was the argument that was not forcefully put by the Government, namely that Parliament had already provided sufficient authority for the triggering of Article 50.