In the endeavor to decentralize Cardano's governance, a key question arises: How can we leverage traditional institutional processes to set up the rules we need and prevent disorder while rejecting old hierarchical systems so that the community handles governance? Intersect explored this topic in this earlier article.

This blog post aims to chart the Cardano constitution's journey from its inception through the interim period with on-chain governance now live on the mainnet and finally to a Cardano constitution that the community can endorse and ratify.

First things first: what is an interim, a draft, and the next Cardano Constitution?

Interim constitution
In short, the temporary set of baseline rules and guardrails secure the chain during the interim period of Cardano’s on-chain governance rollout.

The journey began with the Cardano Civics Committee of Intersect, composed of the first founding members with engineering, political, social science, law, and communications backgrounds. Along with experts and community contributors, pooled from those who engaged with the early versions of CIP-1694, constitutional experts and the Civics Committee put together an interim Constitution, a set of baseline rules and guidelines designed to secure the blockchain through the transitional period 2024. Importantly, it provides the interim Constitutional Committee with a set of rules against which to judge the constitutionality of the first submitted governance and info actions until the Cardano Constitution is ratified on-chain. 

The interim constitution stipulates a broad timeline (reference Appendix II), whereby a convention must take place in 2024 with delegates and traveling alternates, and an approved version of the constitution must be submitted on-chain. This provided the roadmap for the consultation process and a mark for the community to work towards.

The interim constitution currently governs the Cardano blockchain and is available for all to read.

Draft constitution
In short, drawing on the interim constitution, an update taking into account community feedback, concerns, and suggestions for improvement. 

With the safety of the blockchain secured for this interim period, the real business of developing the Cardano constitution by and for the community opened up. This year, an amazing 65 workshops took place across 52 countries, involving nearly 1400 community members. All focused on hearing what the community does and does not want to see in the Cardano constitution—providing feedback and inputs into evolving the draft document. This ranged from removing and adding statements to simplification of language and procedural points to how the constitution should be interpreted. 

For no incentive other than the collective furtherance of Cardano’s governance, the dedication and commitment—and sheer number of hours—put in by the community cannot be overstated. Thank you to all who contributed. 

The synthesis process
To synthesize and make meaningful use of such a large volume of input and information, a difficult balance had to be struck between structuring the workshops around particular themes and questions and making space for all views to be heard. Importantly, all workshops were asked, ‘What other feedback would you like to provide?’ During the first workshops, feedback was also shared with the Civics Committee on their structure and format, allowing them to become more flexible and adaptable during the latter stages of the series. Adding to the process, additional synthesis workshops with delegates were organized in Costa Rica and Kenya earlier this month. 

Adhering to the interim constitution, the Civics Committee ensured that workshops covered a broad geographical mix. Still, for those unable to travel, Intersect facilitated a process for submitting individual feedback, sharing the same information with individual contributors as in-person workshop attendees had access to. This process garnered further responses from community members who might otherwise have been unable to participate.

Following the conclusion of the workshops, the Civics Committee has been engaging with the elected delegates and alternates, who are representatives of the wider workshop cohort, sharing and collaborating on proposed changes to the draft's text. 

The draft constitution itself is, of course, lengthy, detailed, and complex, and necessarily so for a document tasked with supporting and securing a global and sophisticated blockchain, but the Civics Committee has also strived to synthesize it into as concise and accessible a document as possible - the guardrails, or script, that are essential for enforceability by the Constitutional Committee make up the bulk of the document. Credit must go to the almost 1400 community members who have read, engaged with, and provided valuable and meaningful feedback on such a document.

Hearing from the community

"Hosting this workshop brought home the power of community in Cardano —  every voice, from every background,  is encouraged to contribute to the shared vision as we continue moving into Voltaire. Seeing all these perspectives brought together in this way reinforced my personal "why" I’m passionate about Cardano — it’s not just the technology. Still, it is genuinely a collective effort to shape a fairer future.

The Edinburgh workshop was, for me, a real-life demonstration that Cardano’s governance isn’t dictated from the top down but is built from the ground up, giving real voices to every ADA holder." - Larisa McFarlane, Constitutional workshop host, Edinburgh, Scotland.

"Hosting the Constitutional Workshop in Oslo made me even more passionate about our work with the Constitution and highlighted the importance of what we are doing." - Beatrice Anihiri, Constitutional workshop host, Oslo, Norway.

The Cardano constitution
The Constitutional Convention in Buenos Aires in December will mark a pivotal moment for the entire community to come together and celebrate all the work they have put in to get us to this point. Will we have a constitution we are all happy enough to ratify? We shall see. Ultimately, the Cardano constitution will be one that is endorsed by and has the consent of the whole community.

Alternative approaches
As a membership body for the Cardano community, Intersect has strived to facilitate an open, transparent, and inclusive consultation process while recognizing that it hasn’t been perfect. No one membership body can speak for or on behalf of an entire ecosystem, especially one as diverse and globally distributed as Cardano, and nor should it intend to. No community is entirely homogeneous; a broad and diverse range of views, opinions, and approaches exists within every community. 

In December, the Constitutional Convention in Buenos Aires is a moment to review and approve this draft constitution. However, as we all know, Cardano is a permissionless system, and the spirit of decentralization means that alternative constitutions may make their way on-chain. Intersect strives to listen to its members, act on their instructions, and champion a constitution produced with as much community involvement as possible, adapting and responding to the community’s wishes as we govern Cardano together, supporting a robust and sustainable, decentrally governed blockchain long into the future.