The justification for sortition is equity. We all have an equal right to have our views taken into account on all issues. Sortition permits the formation of a truly representative chamber of parliament. Elections do not, for a raft of reasons.
Representation is necessary because direct democracy is unworkable in large modern states, and because no-one has the time to study and understand every issue, particularly as many are highly technical and complex.
It would be absurd to choose one person, or even a small group, by sortition (or elections!), and give them legislative authority. The group chosen must be reasonably large, since a small group cannot be representative.
Regarding sortition and tests: Any test is designed to exclude some people. Who has the right to say that these people should be excluded?
A common idea is that by excluding the stupid, crazy, corrupt, ambitious, malicious… one will get "better" decisions, "better" legislation. But for any decision to be "good" it must first be equitable. Any exclusion renders the chosen group unrepresentative, and hence is inequitable. Better far to include these "undesirables": they will be relatively few in number, just as they are in society, and they will not vote as a unified block when decisions are made. Further, the more diverse the group, the better the quality of decisions (when this can be measured). It is not necessary for all the members of a group to be intelligent or well-intentioned for the group to make intelligent choices.
As for corruption and the undue influence of multinationals, lobbies, religious groups, and bureaucrats, I believe it is possible to greatly reduce or eliminate this with good design of the institutions.
For a fuller discussion of these issues and a proposal for a government based on sortition, you might be interested to read "Down with Elections!", available as an e-book on Smashwords, Amazon and Apple's iTunes bookstore, for about $1. (A blatant plug for my own work).
Representation is necessary because direct democracy is unworkable in large modern states, and because no-one has the time to study and understand every issue, particularly as many are highly technical and complex.
It would be absurd to choose one person, or even a small group, by sortition (or elections!), and give them legislative authority. The group chosen must be reasonably large, since a small group cannot be representative.
Regarding sortition and tests: Any test is designed to exclude some people. Who has the right to say that these people should be excluded?
A common idea is that by excluding the stupid, crazy, corrupt, ambitious, malicious… one will get "better" decisions, "better" legislation. But for any decision to be "good" it must first be equitable. Any exclusion renders the chosen group unrepresentative, and hence is inequitable. Better far to include these "undesirables": they will be relatively few in number, just as they are in society, and they will not vote as a unified block when decisions are made. Further, the more diverse the group, the better the quality of decisions (when this can be measured). It is not necessary for all the members of a group to be intelligent or well-intentioned for the group to make intelligent choices.
As for corruption and the undue influence of multinationals, lobbies, religious groups, and bureaucrats, I believe it is possible to greatly reduce or eliminate this with good design of the institutions.
For a fuller discussion of these issues and a proposal for a government based on sortition, you might be interested to read "Down with Elections!", available as an e-book on Smashwords, Amazon and Apple's iTunes bookstore, for about $1. (A blatant plug for my own work).
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/570431 http://www.amazon.com/DOWN-ELECTIONS-C-Wallace-ebook/dp/B014... https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/down-with-elections!/id1032...
Or you can have it for free as a PDF (less convenient): https://www.dropbox.com/s/7oqo5paiwmwatsp/DWE_PDF.pdf?dl=0