Democracy is a Government of Questions

Democracy is a Government of Questions

by Tipu Salman Makhdoom

Mr Qamar of the PPP said the assembly was not getting its due respect and asked: “For how long this house will function only as a debating society” and where else in the world ministers refrain from coming to parliament?

Daily Dawn, 24th April, 2015

Internal view of the National Assembly (Legislature) of Pakistan

I have to admit that even the worst performance of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in their last tenure cannot tarnish the force of this quote. Our Legislatures are working mainly as debating societies and rubber stamps. Debating to show that they are performing their function and rubber stamping the actions of the Executive branch; the government.

But why the Assembly has to debate, and what? And why does government need approval of the Legislature for its actions? Is it not the basic principle of separation of powers that Legislature and Executive will work independently of each other?

Not really?

Unlike Presidential form of government (USA model), Parliamentary form of government (UK model--that we follow), has "overlapping" separation of powers. This means that cabinet of Ministers and Prime Minister, who are responsible for the management of the country, are elected from among the legislature. This is different from USA model where elections of executive (government) is held separately and elections of legislature take place independently.

So what does all this have to do with the Legislature being "debating society" and "rubber stamp"?

Formation of Parliamentary form of government is interactive. Parliament (Legislature) is elected by the people to make laws for the country while Executive (Cabinet and Prime Minister) is elected by the Parliament to execute these laws.

What is a Law?

When society decides that according to its morality a murderer should be killed as a punishment, it elects those Parliamentarians (or Political Party) which has such punishment in its political manifesto. So when it is elected, it makes law like section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, which provides that whoever will kill a person will be awarded death penalty. Thus we can say that law is an executory form of a political decision taken by society.

How are Parliament and Government Related?

Parliament elects Prime Minister who in turn selects his Ministers. Both Prime Minister and Ministers have to be member Parliament. 

Ministers are answerable to Prime Minister because he selects them. Prime Minister is answerable to the Parliament as it elects him. And Parliament is answerable to the people as they elect it.

Since Prime Minister (along with his cabinet) is answerable to Parliament, it is the Parliament who has to keep a check on the actions of the government. It asks questions from PM and Ministers about govt's actions and criticizes the actions which are not in accordance with the wishes of the people.  

So the system says, that people will elect Parliamentarians every 5 years. Parliamentarians (and thus Political parties) will have to come to the people every 5 years for votes and whoever will not work according to wishes of people will not be elected. Thus Parliamentarians will force government to work according to the wishes of the people so that they can get vote in the next elections.

But in our case people don't ask tough questions from the candidates during elections; questions regarding laws they passed and not passed, and about performance of government. They only ask which candidate will influence police and revenue officials (Patwaris) for them. So Parliamentarians don't feel pushed in controlling government according to peoples' wishes. And since Parliamentarians do not ask tough questions from government, it works according to its own wishes; which are often to serve their own vested interests.

Our Parliament is a debating society because Parliamentarians don't ask tough questions from government. And that's because people don't ask tough questions from Parliamentarians. Unless we learn to ask tough questions, we will remain in the pit we are in!