Sir, – Your lead Editorial (November 16th) rightly deplored the facelessness of the 66 citizen members of the constitutional convention currently being constituted.
May I suggest that we also need to know who are the people being appointed to provide the secretariat of this convention?
Any study of the work of such deliberative bodies clearly indicates that the most important personalities in the shaping of their work are the chairman and the secretary. I know the chairman, Tom Arnold, and wish him well. I would really like to know more about the secretariat, particularly as your report (November 15th) told us: “The secretariat for the convention is expected to run introductory courses and to select panels of experts to assist in deliberations”.
Of course we will also need the names of any such selected experts further down the road.
Can there be a more important area for openness and transparency than reflection on the Constitution? – Yours, etc,