The tyranny of the majority has been a persistent structural problem of government systems since the dawn of the era of democratic liberalism. While there exist many mechanisms to mitigate it, they risk providing a way for the opposite to occur — tyranny of the minority. This paper suggests a mechanism to bypass this tension altogether. Through the use of a jury trial format to scrutinize legislation — with a sortition body providing a verdict — parliament sidesteps the typical majoritarian dynamics by opening up legislative pathways with sub-majoritarian voting power. This paper sets out to argue, using the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning as a basis, how this can be done while still maintaining legislative coherence. The result is an equalization of power, without the tension between majority and minority parties in majoritarian systems. How this system manages accountability and legitimacy is left open for future work.
Jordan Rose (Thu,) studied this question.