KTub8

Introduction
On 20 October 2012, exactly four years after the
crash of its banking system, 66 percent of voters in
Iceland approved a new draft constitution. This was to
constitute the crowning achievement of what began as
a wave of spontaneous popular unrest. The kitchenware
revolution, named after crowds banging pots and pans
that showed up spontaneously in front of parliament,
mobilised itself against a public bailout of banks and
the implementation of orthodox austerity measures.
But more than that, the people managed to oust the
government and initiate reforms at a fundamental level
aimed against such corruption and misappropriation
ever happening again. The core element of these reforms
was the new constitution.
The drafting of a new constitution generated a
great deal of controversy. 1 The conservative parties
which had enabled the financial boom and bust
through deregulation, privatisation and cronyism
argued, correctly from a legal standpoint, that the
writing of constitutional law is the exclusive domain
of the parliament. Yet crucially, the new constitution
was written by a newly formed ‘Constitutional Council’
consisting of 25 elected citizens, acting as individuals
not representing any party or group. 2 The council
decided to involve the public at large which could, and
did, participate through social media and a custom
made website by proposing changes and making
comments to proposed articles. But the resistance from
the opposition was not just motivated by legalistic
concerns, but also by the content of the constitution
itself, which embodies a resounding rejection of the
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