In previous 2010 , a stunning serial of result across the world showed how fed up trillion are with political corruption , inequality , and societal injustice . Technology played a key role in muster support during the Arab Spring , and in Morocco , an open online platform that allowed citizen to help oneself revamptheir nation ’s constitutionfour years ago led to a website that still sour to endue normal citizens in the legislative process .
It ’s calledLegislation laboratory , and it ’s a beta project under the umbrella of GovRight , an organization that presents natural law document to the world in an well-to-do - to - realise , easy - to - access way . Legislation science lab then allows citizens to voice feedback on proposals that might become laws . Do people like a proposal ? Dislike it ? What would they change ? All interpreter and ruling are welcome . The laboratory mold with jurisprudence facilitators to present the sound documents and to boost discourse with substance abuser . Ideally , the public feedback is represent to government officials and will extend to veridical variety . They want to end the gap in the legislative process between the with child cheeses and the regular phratry . That ’s what occur in Morocco in 2011 .
The genesis of Legislation Lab began back four years ago , when Morocco ’s King Mohammed VI declare that constitutional reform was come . That ’s when former Microsoft engineer Tarik Nesh - Nash co - found Reforme.ma . It was an open , participatory platform that aggregate opinion from everyday Moroccans with the finish of shift the commonwealth ’s constitution to be more democratic . Within two months , more than 10,000 citizen proposition were gather , and Nesh - Nash presented it all to the constitutional mechanical drawing citizens committee . Nesh - Nash says the unexampled draft of the organization included 40 % of the suggestions aggregated on Reforme.ma . In July of the same year,98.45%of the public voted in approval for the raw constitution in a referendum . The changesstripped a plenty of powerfrom King Mohammed VI and gave it to the publicly elect representatives instead .
Legislation Lab , which grew out of the achiever of Reforme.ma , was choose by the United Nations as one of 14 pioneer around the world to avail address the UN ’s 17Sustainable Development Goalsby 2030 . Legislation Laboutlined their plansalongside the other winning startup and companies last month at UN Headquarters in New York .
“ Citizens should be able to express their persuasion before political leaders make important determination , ” Tarik secern the World Bank in aninterview . “ One of the independent objective lens of Reforme.ma was to inform youths , to advance them to understand and comment on the constitution that would soon govern their nation . ”
Next , Legislation Lab has planned projects forNew York City , Chile , andIraq , with the finish of empowering citizens to be more informed about their legal rights , and how they can have a real effect on incoming legislation . This is a great example of how technology helps to do that .
Top image : Pro - government supporters in Casablanca celebrate on June 17 , 2011 after King Mohammed VI ’s speech sketch constitutional amendments that secured a more herculean elected governing . Credit : AP Photo / Abdeljalil Bounhar .
This story is part of a special serial about the United Nations ’ project to clear ball-shaped issues using emerging technology . Read more about ithere .
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