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Make Law, Not Ass
Will
Parliament’s functioning be an issue in Parliamentary elections?
WSN Bureau
 As
India
races towards Parliamentary elections, the debate in the political
domain is likely to soon get shriller with talk of terrorism,
national security and other radical nationalist issues. Indian
democracy is still not mature enough to create space and occasion
for the electorate to weigh the pros and cons of different issues,
parties and candidates. There is little difference in the tone and
tenor of the debate whether it is panchayat polls or Parliamentary
polls.
Parkash Singh
Badal in
Punjab wants people to elect L K Advani as the next Prime Minister
even from the religious stage of Jor Mela. In Kashmir, the Abdullahs
will want the electorate to back the National Conference in order to
give boost to the new NC-Congress government. The country will be
told that corruption is the main issue, so is national security.
Bet good money
on the BJP strategy of making terror an election issue. And Congress
will be selling the Nehru-Gandhi family.
No one will be
focussing on how the elected representatives of the people perform
in Parliament. All MPs are basically law makers. What qualifications
do they have for hammering out laws for the citizens, what laws did
they help bring, how they voted on various bills and rulings, and
what causes did they bring to the Parliament will not be an issue
for any party.
 Such
muddleheaded wonder is the Indian Parliament, elections to which are
due by April-May.
The Akali Dal in
Punjab
has already announced some 10 candidates, and Badal parivar will be
making a personal contribution by fielding one of the family, if not
two.
But when was the
last time you heard a debate about the two Houses of Parliament and
the state legislatures as being the basic units of political
representation. Their relations with the other organs of state – the
executive and the judiciary – provide the locus of working of the
parliamentary system of governance.
Recently, in the
last few years, some friction, and at times significant friction,
happened between the legislature and the executive. Fear not,
because this will not be an issue in Indian elections. That is not
how polity in
India
works.
The Parliament
is increasingly weakening in
India because of
the quality of MPs that we are sending. This weakening of Parliament
leads to accretion of a disproportionate power in other
institutions, upsetting the system of checks and balances, and
creating distortions which ultimately weaken the system.
No political
party mde it much of an issue when the executive under the
much-hyped-for-honesty PM Manmohan Singh did not convene a Winter
Session and used the fracas on the last day of the session to push
through enactment of a number of bills without any discussion.
An obvious
measure of effective working of Parliament is the number of days it
sits and the amount of business it transacts. On both counts, the
performance of
India’s
Parliament is becoming increasingly deficient. It sat for less than
50 days in all of 2008 and missed the whole Winter Session.
The number of
sessions has progressively declined over the years. The first Lok
Sabha met for an average of 150 days a year, for less than 80 in the
last few years and for the smallest number ever last year. The
number of bills passed by Parliament has also declined. The last
session in December saw eight important bills passed in five minutes
without a discussion. Fast-tracking of legislation and guillotining
of demands for grants have become common. The functioning and
expenditure of many ministries are not debated and scrutinised. The
annual average number of bills passed by Parliament in the first
decade was 68. It is less than 50 now.
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All MPs are basically law makers. What qualifications do they
have for hammering out laws for the citizens, what laws did they
help bring, how they voted on various bills and rulings, and
what causes did they bring to the Parliament will not be an
issue for any party. Such muddleheaded wonder is the Indian
Parliament, elections to which are due by April-May. |
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Parliaments in
all other democracies with a system similar to
India
work for longer periods. There have been suggestions to set a norm
of a minimum number of working days for Parliament. The suggested
minimum has varied from 130 to 150 days in a year, but governments
and political parties have not shown interest in following up on the
proposals.
It is not just
that the number of sittings and working hours have shrunk. Even when
the Houses are in session much time is lost in disruptions. Informed
debates on any subject are rarely
heard in
Parliament. The composition of Parliament is a factor that has
affected its functioning. Many members are not informed, some have
criminal backgrounds, a good number are plainly uninterested and are
cynical. They are unable to contribute to any discussion on most
subjects.
The raison
d’etre of the Parliament's existence is enacting legislation after
due deliberation and ensuring the accountability of the executive.
Of what use is Parliament if legislative business is carried out in
a din in five minutes.
Debates are not
just about getting the bill right. They also help to clarify law for
the people. The debates also act as instruments for better
interpretation. Without debate, the law becomes a soulless piece.
This has
happened in the case of many constitutional provisions. The courts
have taken the debates and proceedings in the Constituent Assembly
to place the intent of constitutional provisions in their correct
context and interpret them accordingly. A legislation passed in a
hurry without a discussion offers no such guidance.
If we take the
argument advanced in some sectors that the bills are discussed
thoroughly by parliamentary committees, is it then to be understood
that Parliament is only a meant-for-the-TV show? Clearly, ruling
classes in
India,
represented by major political parties, are more comfortable without
Parliament.
Commitments
given to Parliament are not honoured and are even violated. But if
governments have taken Parliament for granted, it is basically
because the legislative body has abdicated its responsibility to
protect its powers and keep a watch on the functioning of the
executive.
The rot actually
started at the state level. The number of legislature sessions in
the states started coming down much earlier, and Parliament played
catch-up in the 1990s and in the current decade. The diminution of
the legislature and the growing strength of the executive were
mutually reinforcing and created a vicious cycle of imbalance of
powers. Even the idea of Parliament
has changed for
the legislators. Rather than being the depository of democratic
power and the legitimising forum for executive action, it has become
a gateway to positions of office (ministerships) and a mere legal
requirement for participation in government.
A weak
Parliament invests the executive with arbitrary and unaccountable
powers, which are often used not in the best public interest. And an
arbitrary and unfair executive, which is a product of the failure of
Parliament, becomes a temptation for the judiciary to encroach into
the domain of Parliament. This has too often happened.
Innocent
youngsters in
India often
suggest forfeiture of salaries of the Members of Parliament (MPs)
for absence or disruption of proceedings. This may not be of much
use since Indian MPs do not live on their salaries.
28 January 2009
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