Can Citizens be Effective Constitutional Agenda Setters? The Changing of the Romanian Constitution 2013 – 2014

Following the 2012 political crisis of cohabitation, the parliamentary majority in the Romanian legislature initiated a process of constitutional change. The government decided to involve the civil society in the process and delegated the consultation process to a civil society body, i.e. the Constitutional Forum. The work in Parliament has started only after the Forum’s activities have ended to include in the reform project the citizen-driven proposals emerged during the Forum meetings. This gave civil society the role of constitutional agenda setter. Our paper explores the organization of the forum, the interactions between civil society and political decision makers and the impact the forum had on the final version of the new Constitution. It critically assesses the viability of such experiments and explore their relevance in the wider framework of democratic deliberation and constitutional change.