Descending the ivory tower and deliberating academia: a minipublic of constitutionalists at the World Congress of Constitutional Law

What happens when you convene a deliberative mini-public composed entirely of leading academics, in the middle of a global congress? The result marks a refreshing change to predictable conference programmes, and a rare opportunity for two academic fields to work together on a collective concern. In this article, the organising team reflect on how things played out.

“Mini what?”

You could hear the question echoing through the corridors. Most of the more than 2,000 participants at this year’s World Congress of Constitutional Law at Universidad Externado in Bogotá had never heard the term mini-public. Yet outside Room H, people had already started queuing to see what it was all about.

More than 200 participants eventually squeezed into the packed auditorium. Some latecomers had to sit on the stairs, a rare sight at an academic conference. Around half of those present – 119 constitutional scholars, to be exact – had been randomly selected to reflect the diversity of the more than 2,000 people registered for the conference. The sample was stratified to reflect the gender, regions (and therefore legal traditions), and countries of the wider universe of the conference. 63 participants were men and 56 were women. They came from six continents: 44 from Latin America, 37 from Western Europe, 17 from North America, 6 from Africa, and smaller numbers from other regions. Some came from countries that rarely feature in global constitutional law debates, including Mozambique, Guatemala, Romania, the Dominican Republic, and Nigeria. Many were early-career scholars, while others were senior figures in the field.

Weeks before the conference, they had received an invitation letter followed by a short guide explaining their role in the “Mini-public on Democracy as a Human Right”. As organisers, we selected this topic not only because the global crisis of democracy provided common ground for participants from many jurisdictions, but also because the discussion had a clear public purpose. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is currently considering whether democracy should be recognised as a human right. The Court is expected to issue its decision in the coming months. As often happens with international courts, its ruling could influence constitutional courts and legislatures across the region and beyond.

Of the 200 invitations we sent, 119 scholars accepted (59.5%). This is an exceptionally high acceptance rate compared with most mini-publics, where participation often remains below 10%. Twenty professors facilitated the discussions – two for each table – and around thirty students supported the process. Overall, the mini-public involved around 200 people—roughly 10% of everyone registered for the conference. Among the spectators and observers were Luís Roberto Barroso, former President of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court; and leading constitutional scholars like Tom Ginsburg, Sabrina Ragone, David Landau, Dieter Grimm, and Mila Versteeg.

Anyone who has attended a large conference knows the routine. Thousands of scholars walk through endless corridors searching for the room where they will present years of research to a small audience, often composed of people who sit behind laptops, preparing the slides for their own presentations.

As the five members of the organising committee, we knew this would be something unusual. We had begun planning several months before the conference. At first, our motivation was fairly simple. Anyone who has attended a large conference knows the routine. Thousands of scholars walk through endless corridors searching for the room where they will present years of research to a small audience, often composed of people who sit behind laptops, preparing the slides for their own presentations. Meanwhile, hundreds of equally interesting conversations take place behind other doors. Academics often leave conferences with better papers, stronger networks, and new publication opportunities. But they rarely come together to work collectively on a question of public concern.

The problem is not a lack of public commitment. The ivory tower stereotype of academia is, we think, largely unfair. Many academics care deeply about public concerns. The real challenge lies elsewhere. Academic life tends to reward individual rather than collective achievement, and large conferences illustrate this well. Opportunities for scholars to combine their knowledge in pursuit of a shared public purpose remain surprisingly rare.

The mini-public combined plenary sessions with small-group deliberation. It began with an opening plenary, where Roberto Gargarella delivered the keynote (his reflections on the mini-public, in Spanish, can be found here). Participants then moved into ten facilitated groups of around twelve people each. The groups discussed five themes: the normative content of the right to democracy – what should such a right protect that existing individual and collective rights in democratic constitutions do not already protect?; its deliberative dimension; its implications for existing constitutional institutions; the role of democratic innovations; and the risks that both these innovations and the recognition of such a right may pose, together with possible safeguards.

Two fields that too often remain separate, yet urgently need to talk to each other – constitutional law and democratic innovation – came together in this new academic format.

As often happens in deliberative processes, the recommendations turned out to be surprisingly detailed and substantive. Participants insisted that a right to democracy should protect a deliberative environment, not just the right to vote. They argued that constitutional protections should extend not only to courts but also to oversight bodies and electoral authorities. Courts, they added, should strengthen their mechanisms for engaging with citizens, particularly in cases of high social impact. Participants also warned against hyper-presidentialism.

They recommended several institutional reforms. These included greater transparency in cabinet meetings and judicial proceedings, stronger legal protections for extra-parliamentary opposition, and exploring the possibility of making some political promises legally binding. They also suggested that elected representatives and senior public officials should undergo a public accountability process at the end of their terms, and that presidential debates should become mandatory.
Participants strongly supported democratic innovations, including mini-publics. Interestingly, they proposed a voluntary model in which citizens could enrol in advance, provided they completed the necessary learning programme before taking part.

Several recommendations addressed the digital sphere. Participants proposed creating an independent body, separate from the three branches of government, to adjudicate cases involving digital disinformation. They also argued that algorithms require stronger regulation and proposed a "half-and-half" rule, under which digital platforms would expose users to information from different political perspectives. Participants criticised political microtargeting, and some suggested creating public social media platforms at both the national and international levels. Finally, they recommended stronger regulation of AI systems to prevent the invisibilisation of women and ethnic minorities. The final recommendations will be shared with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as with other international and national courts and legislatures.

The experiment was far from perfect, and there is much we would do differently next time. Some discussions were difficult to start, and at times participants slipped into academic debates. By the standards of most mini-publics, the process was short. By the standards of an academic conference, however, it was remarkably long. Ordinary workshops and plenaries at academic conferences tend to last two hours. Keeping 200 people engaged in a mini-public for five hours, while many other activities were taking place in parallel, was an achievement. Like many deliberative initiatives, this mini-public relied almost entirely on voluntary work. The organising committee, the facilitators, the student assistants, and the participants all contributed their time without financial compensation. Given more resources, we would have organised online sessions before and after the in-person deliberation.

But two fields that too often remain separate, yet urgently need to talk to each other – constitutional law and democratic innovation – came together in this new academic format. We hope this mini-public is a first step to further cross-fertilisation across these two fields, as well as a novel format that other academic conferences might build on in the future.

About the Authors

Felipe Rey is Professor of Constitutional Law at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Co-Lead of Democracy R&D, and co-founder of iDeemos. He has been involved in the design and implementation of several citizens’ assemblies in Latin America, including Bogotá’s Itinerant Citizens’ Assembly (2020–2023) and Deliberative Cycles (2024–2027). He recently co-authored Democracy R&D’s two Year in Deliberation reports, as well as “Assemblies Across Borders,” published in the Journal of Deliberative Democracy.

Magdalena Correa Henao is Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad Externado de Colombia. Her research focuses on constitutional law, judicial review, social rights and economic freedoms.

Roberto Gargarella is Senior Researcher at CONICET (Argentina) and Visiting Professor at the UPF, where he helds an ERC Advanced Project. He has written extensively on constitutionalism, democracy, political equality, and the relationship between law and politics, with particular attention to Latin American constitutionalism. He is the author of numerous books, including Latin American Constitutionalism and The Law as a Conversation Among Equals.

Jorge Ernesto Roa Roa is Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra. His research focuses on constitutional law, judicial review, and deliberative democracy.
César M. Vallejo is Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad Externado de Colombia. His research focuses on constitutional law, democratic theory, human rights, citizenship, migration, and democratic innovation.