Parliament must get back primacy
Telangana Today (19-08-2019)
Withering away
Millennium Post, New Delhi (19-08-2019)
Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
In the recent past passage of Bills like RTI, Triple Talaq, River
water disputes, revoking Article 370, bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir etc. has
every reason to critically analyze Parliament accountability aspect more
deeply.
The Indian Parliament completed 60 years of its existence seven
years ago. Couple of Parliamentarians of yester years were also felicitated on
the occasion. However, over the years the effectiveness of Indian Parliament as
an institution of accountability and supervision is on the decline. The
instruments for accountability like motions on the floor, oversight powers,
committee system that Parliament can use, are being rendered dysfunctional.
Globalization of Indian economy eroded the power of Parliament.
International treaties govern much of the economic decision making and
Parliament does not have a system of effective treaty oversight in place. The
decision on these treaties would have been already taken and are unalterable,
by the time they come to Parliament. Parliamentary oversight on the powers
which are being delegated to non-elected institutions is very weak.
Ineffective Institution
Slow legislation process, more powers to executive in the form of
ordinances substituting for legislation were identified as the weakness of the
Indian Parliament. Parliament is increasingly becoming ineffective in
providing scrutiny of the executive. Parliament itself has self-abdicated many
of its functions. The imperatives of electoral and party politics gave birth to
delay important legislation just for the sake of delay but not for any
qualitative improvement in legislation. Parliament is more an oppositional
space rather than a forum for genuine debate.
It is debatable as to what extent Indian Parliament could be held
responsible for the successes and failures of Indian democracy. Performance of
Parliamentary Democracy is not independent of performance of Parliament.
Performance of legislators in a parliamentary system is more an outcome of the
influence of the political party to which they belong than anything else. The
quality of parliamentarians, judged by their qualifications and commitment,
seems to be declining. Though India’s current parliamentarians have much higher
levels of formal education than in the past, sizable number among them has
criminal backgrounds. This is certainly has an impact on the functioning of Parliament.
The composition of Parliament in general and in the Lok Sabha in
particular, has been a reliable index of the changing political preferences of
Indian voters. The social composition of Parliament has changed considerably
over the years. From its inception as an elite coterie of British educated
lawyers, its members today are drawn from a variety of social strata and
occupations. Parliament continues to lag behind in the representation of women,
and through quotas, a certain number of seats have been earmarked for
historically marginalized groups, the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and this has
ensured the representation of these groups in Parliament. Parliament thus is a
reasonable representation of the diversity of social interests.
Declining Oversight
The “state of emergency” that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
declared in 1975 was probably one of the most precarious episodes for
parliamentary democracy and was not warranted by the national interest. There
is also a general sense that the procedural norms that are the basis of
parliamentary practice began to erode, particularly after the mid-1970s. The
weakening of political parties, the multiplicity of political parties
represented in Parliament, from five in the first Lok Sabha to nearly 40
subsequently as well as the changing nature of constituent services and
re-election incentives have all transformed this institution.
The primary objective of Parliament is to enact legislation,
although it also has constitutional, financial and governmental powers. It is
the sole body that can amend the Constitution. It is also the only body with
the power to raise taxes and spend money, including the authority to pass the
annual budget. The failure of the government to ensure the passage of the
budget is automatically a vote of no-confidence. Finally, the Cabinet is
collectively responsible to Parliament.
Parliament is the agency through which government is held
accountable. The opposition is the constituent part of Parliament that has the
most incentive to use the statutory powers of Parliament to keep the government
accountable. The principal reason that opposition parties in India do not
scrutinize the day-to-day functions of government with any seriousness is that
political parties are weak institutions. The ability of the opposition to
function as an independent mechanism of accountability has little to do with
the formal rules of Parliament.
There are various types of committees in the Indian Parliament
namely standing committees like Committee on Public Accounts, the Committee on
Estimates and the Committee on Public Undertakings and Ad hoc Committees which
are usually appointed for a specific purpose and can be either select or joint.
However, the Parliament itself tends to ignore the reports of its committees
which are yet another reason for declining accountability.
Rising Disorders
Legislation in the Parliament involves three stages corresponding
to three readings of a bill. A distinction needs to be made between the
workings of Parliament as an institution and the processes that go into the
making of Parliament itself. The imperatives of raising electoral financing
makes parliamentarians beholden to special interests and in some cases corrupts
them, distorts the legislative process and causes considerable decline in the
standing of Parliament.
The number of sittings of Parliament over the years has declined.
There is a sharp increase in adjournments of the house as a result of
disorderly scenes and interruptions where nothing could be recorded and nobody
could hear the MPs. Due to interruptions legislative proceedings are frequently
disrupted to the point where there is no option but to adjourn. The disruption
can take many forms including rushing to the well of the house and shouting
down the speaker.
On the one hand, it appears that parliamentarians spend most of
their time attending to the affairs of their constituents. On the other hand,
parliamentarians seem relatively uninterested or ineffective in utilizing
grants and policies for the development of their constituencies. This is
exemplified by the extraordinary failure of the Local Area Development (MPLADS)
scheme. It also seems that most MPs and their constituents seem to look upon
MPs primarily as distributors of patronage rather than as policy makers.
Under the Indian Constitution, the president can, on the advice of
the government and even in the absence of parliamentary legislation, promulgate
ordinances to deal with matters that might arise from time to time. The
frequent use of presidential ordinances cannot be seen other than as a way of
by-passing the need to secure parliamentary approval for important legislation.
While parliamentary democracy remains healthy there are significant
institutional challenges facing Parliament and it’s absolutely necessary to
overcome them.
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