Is a Citizens Jury representative of the public?
Each Citizens Jury is selected through a random stratified method. This means that the group is a microcosm of the community from which it is drawn, at least in terms of the five or six demographic characteristics used for the stratification. For this reason it is often said that a Citizens Jury is representative of the community from which it is drawn. A Citizens Jury is not representative in the sense of a scientific random sample of some 600 or more people. From such a large sample it is possible to use statistical methods to infer characteristics of the public as a whole at a level of certainty determined by sample size, response rate and quality of survey methods. But the purpose of a Citizens Jury is not to reflect where the public stands at any moment in time. Its purpose is to discover what a committee of the public thinks about an issue when given a good opportunity to examine it closely. Any large democratically organized group is likely to use committees to take close looks
