Legislature and governance:

Role of legislature:
1. Making new laws, changing the existing laws, cancellation of obsolete laws
2. express the views and wishes of the citizens by their elected representatives
3. Oversee the activities of the executive so that government is accountable
to people.
For example: legislature assemblies of roman republics had the final say in electing
the magistrates, enactment of laws, carrying out of capital punishment, the
declaration of war and peace, creation and dissolution of alliances.
The roman senate controlled finance ,administration and foreign policy
Good governance and its core concepts: People’s participation, rule of law, right to
expression, accountability and transparency
Governance and legislature (SA perspective);
Hasnat Abdul Hye
Legislature is a general term which subsumes various other specific names like parliament, congress, national
assembly and country specific names like (Diet in Japan, Cortes in Spain, Jatiya Sangshad in Bangladesh) more
over legislature can be both under dictatorial regimes and in representative democracies.
The relationship between legislature and executive defines the nature of government and scope of governance
In parliamentary democracy sovereignty of the people rests in and is upheld by legislature , therefore
legislatures role is like custodian, therefore most important organ of state
Principal task of legislature is –law making, supreme act is adoption of the constitution which lays down the
fundamental rights of people, state principles and powers and functions of the principal branches of the state.
As a constituent assembly very first action is of safeguarding the principles of governance and
embodying the institutions entrusted with them
How legislature can ensure good governance: by constitution making and enactment of various laws (if the
wishes of the people, their hopes and aspirations are truly reflected in the constitution and in the enacted laws
thereafter)
life span of laws enacted, a law meant of common weal of the people should be based on general consensus so
that they remain as perpetual law irrespective of changes in the government. In this system there is multi-
party, unanimous approval and thus good governance is ensured
Oversight of implementation and administration of the laws, but if the legislative power in a free state has no
right to stay the executive, it has a right and ought to have the means of examining in what manner its laws
have been executed.” (Montesquieu, 1848) Legislative supervision over the executive branch of the state is
required not only for ensuring enforcement of laws but also to check and control excess committed and
transgressions made by the public servants. This power is exercised through general discussions in the sessions
and in various parliamentary committees. The more vigorous, active and regular are these forums for
overseeing and controlling the executive branch , the greater is the promotion of the cause of good governance
Types of legislature

• The ways the parliamentary power is exercised to hold the executive to account depends on the
types and nature of parliament. There are four major types/model of parliaments have been
mentioned by Johnson (2005): rubber-stamp legislature, arena legislature, transformative
legislature, and emerging legislature.
• The simplest form of parliament is called rubber-stamp legislatures. Those bodies normally endorse
decisions made someplace else within the political system, usually by parties and/ or the executive branch
(Johnson, 2005). The rubber stamp parliaments need little internal shape or professional staff and normally
do not need long parliamentary sessions. For instance, the Duma of the former Soviet Union and the
Mexican congress might be taken into consideration as rubber stamp legislatures.
• The second type of legislature is the arena legislature which is more powerful and effective than the
rubber-stamp legislature. The arena legislature is a platform of actual dialogue, speech, and debate.
Executive and political parties generally take policy initiatives. In arena legislatures, variations in society are
articulated and government actions and plans are evaluated from specific perspectives, however, they
generally tend not to provoke or dramatically reshape policy proposals (Johnson, 2005). The British House
of Commons can be mentioned as an example of area legislature. Nelson Polsby’s …” fundamentally a
talking shop rather than a policymaking machine, in part due to the dominance of political parties.
Reactive rather than active
• The least common form of the legislature is transformative legislatures. Transformative legislatures not only
represent different community interests but also their silhouette budgets and policies. They have got
particularly complicated internal systems (inclusive of strong committee systems), extremely good records
wishes, and depend closely on notably educated expert staff. Generally, US congress is used for example of
the transformative legislature (Johnson, 2005).
• Emerging legislatures are within the manner of change from one type to another. Emerging legislatures are
underneath big pressure, as parliament’s managers and personnel struggle to meet the growing demands.
Emerging legislatures need expert staff, data systems, workplace space, and other capacities to enable them
to expand their budget, policy-making and oversight roles. MPs demand greater of parliamentary workforce
individuals, who should reply more quickly, working faster, and do more than they have passed. Mexico’s
congress and Kenya’s and Uganda’s parliaments will be classified as rising legislatures (Johnson, 2005).
• Philip Norton suggests three levels of parliamentary involvement in policy
making:
• Policymaking legislatures, policy influencing legislatures and policy legitimizing
legislatures
• The US congress stands as an exceptional instance of a policy making legislature.
The British Parliament along with most of the western European countries falls
within the broad category of policy influencing legislatures.
• The third category of a legislature with little or no policy effect compromises
legislatures in communist or one- party states: former USSR, China, and the
central and Eastern European countries
• Based on Norton’s classification,
nd
the
rd
parliament of Bangladesh would fall
somewhere between the 2 and 3 category as it may exert some influence on
Public policies but perhaps not enough to be regarded as an influential role player
in the policy affairs arena
Analyzing parliamentary influence from
policy perspective
• Agenda setting and issue selection: government institutions are cabinet and
bureaucracy, PI- individual MPs, other institutions are Ruling political party,
pressure group, media/civil society/donors. Role of PIs Influencing agenda
• Policy formulation/deliberation/adoption: The executive cabinet, PM advisors to
PM, The judiciary, PIs: House, Opposition in the parliament, committee members.
Role of PIs: Legislation, Private members bill, Budget, Public hearing.
• Policy implementation: The civil service, Civil society, Private sector community,
PIs: House, Role: Budget revision
• Policy monitoring and evaluation: IMED, Departmental monitoring, Other
institutions: CAG, Media, Civil society, Donors, Anti –corruption commission, PIs:
House, PAC committees, MPs in their constituencies in general and LGIs in
particulars, role of PIs: Monitoring and oversight
Strengthening parliamentary oversight:
Parliamentary committees
• Parliamentary committees as ‘mini parliaments’ in as much as they do perform on behalf of the House, albeit in a particular
manner (Firoj, 2013). In modern times as the functions and standards of a parliament are reflected in its committees.
Morris-Jones said that a legislature may be known by the committees it keeps (Johnson, 2005). Standing committees
(ministerial) Finance and Audit committees, Committees on Privileges, com on the petition, Committee on Government
Assurances, committee on rules of procedure, Public accounts committee excreta
• In 12th JS in total 50 committees among which 39 are directly related to ministries known as ‘parliamentary standing
committee’ and entrusted with oversight responsibilities of relevant ministerial activities and functions of the executives,
unfortunately the committees are more active in overseeing government activities rather than analyzing policy issues and
keeping the executive branch accountable.
• Reason can be that Parliamentary committees though modeled on Westminster system but lacks several features that serve
to check govt power. For example in theory committees can choose their members and chair person but in practice this
responsibility falls on the PM. AS in the 12th JS it is PM and chief Whip proposed the last 12 committee’s members.
• Meetings of the committees will meet in closed session, public hearing requires express permission from speaker. Govt may
decline to produce document for the safety and interest of the state, ministers can ignore a request to appear before a
committee meeting, though they are ex-officio members of the committees. Parliamentary secretary is not independent of
the executive as most of the service staff are from the civil service and serves in rotation. In past parliaments 23/23 and
57/145 Class 1 staff were from the civil service. Committees are under staffed and one committee secretary serve multiple
committees. Have no power to force someone to appear before them or compel to submit documents before them.
Ministries have no legal obligation to adopt the committee recommendation. Conflict of interest in committee members
can be seen. Shamim Osman, a member of the standing committee on labour ministry, owns the garment factory "Wisdom
Knitting Mills" while another member of the committee SM Al Mamun is involved in ship-breaking yards.
Parliamentary committees:
• In the case of budgetary process , as a form of pre-budget consultation, the finance minister shares a certain
portion of the budget document with all the chairmen of the standing committees which is inadequate in
effort and time as altogether 2/3 weeks are given in the discussion. Also post budget discussion also can not
carry much fruitfulness as the MPs don’t have that qualification and training to make an informed post-budget
review.
• The JS rules of procedure prohibits the PC to scrutinize budgetary contents. In other parliaments like in Uk
features extensive committee stage hearing lasting several weeks of three-month parliamentary budget
process. In India budget process has to take not more than 75 days. Both the houses adjourn for fixed amount
of time for the committee stage (three weeks)
• Apart from aforementioned challenges, due to conflicting political environment committee activities are
greatly influenced by the political parties. Lack of compromise between the parties to some extent makes the
committees dysfunctional. Despite the existing limitations, committees provide a training ground for the
legislators to improve their parliamentary norms and procedural knowledge (Subho, 2016). Moreover, the
proportion of the members from the opposition in different Parliamentary Committees needs to be
increased and these committees should publish their reports timely. Besides, most of the recommendations
of Parliamentary Committees are not being implemented by ministries (Mikail and Chowdhury, 2017). Also
committees suffer from lack of resources For instance, the PAC suffers from lack of adequate staff and research
capacity, the committee usually does not invite professionals and specialists to provide advice, and there is no
system of discussing reports and findings in the plenary (World Bank 2006: 54 cited in Jahan and Amundsen,
2012).
The opposition
• In addition to committees, the opposition plays a critical role in holding the executive accountable(Jahan,
2012). The opposition is the ‘watchdog of the watchdogs’, particularly in the Westminster style parliamentary
system. In Bangladesh, the opposition’s role is much more important because of the presence of Article 70
which imposes strict party control (Firoj, 2013) However, for a range of reasons, the opposition has not been
capable to play its role adequately.
• First, confrontational political culture is continuing in Bangladesh since the Pakistan period. On the one hand,
the ruling party (no matter the party) has invariably used the incumbency advantage and tried to determine
hegemonic management over the political agenda and the employment of public resources (Jahan, 2015).
On the opposite hand, the opposition (no matter the party) claims to be politically marginalized which
parliamentary work makes meaningless and fruitless. They engage in extra-parliamentary politics like
dominance in the streets rather than partaking actively in parliamentary work (Ahmed and Obaidullah, 2007).
The trends of the boycott have notably weakened the opposition and damaged its public image.
• Second, the individual members can also use several techniques for scrutiny and oversight, these include
questions, adjournment motions, motions for half-an-hour discussion and call-attention motions (Ahmed and
Obaidullah, 2007). The extent to which these techniques are capable of securing the accountability of the
executive and administration depends on several factors, of which, two deserve special mention: the
willingness and the ability of MPs to make maximum use of them (Ahmed, 2002; Jahan, 2015).
Legislation procedure
• BAC sets the agenda
• Opposition day
• Legislation through promulgating ordinances
• Govt. backbenchers blindly following party will rather than expressing their own opinion.
• Role of parliamentary committees scrutinizing bills ensured by rules of procedure but bills don’t have a committee
stage hearing. For instance in 5th ,7th ,8th JS respectively 8, most bills and almost zero bills were discussed in
committees
• Private members bill: 9 out of 1152 and 3 of them were from 9th parliament.
• Delegated legislation: The power to make orders, rules, regulations, by-laws (regulations made by local authority) and
other instruments having legislative effect.
• Article 65 and 65(1)
• No legislative oversight instrument is there for sub-ordinate legislation in BD . Therefore much less publicity and public scrutiny exists than
the JS passed Laws and eventually loopholes for making arbitrary rules or regulations is created.
• delegated laws are made while primary laws are presented in front of the parliament (Exception labour rules 2015)
• no need for routine circulation of their draft from so public input is reduced
• Delegated laws are passed under very broad mandate , there fore if necessary these laws can not be proved ultra-vires to the parent law. Thus
general and broad directives increases the power of executives and lessens the scope for participation of the parliamentarians and
bureaucratic rule making remains the jurisdiction of the parliament.
• ‘Control of delegated legislation bill 1998” where govt. agencies (except the supreme court) had to seek prior approval of relevan PC before
making any rules, regulations or by laws. The committee had the right to accept or reject the proposal or ask the concerned org to modify
them with in 60 days. The bill was refused in the second reading by majority.
Role of individual MPs
❑ Pre-budget consultation ensures individual MP’s key legislative function
i.e: representation. Because MPs are mandated to draw views and
opinions from the public, private citizens and organized groups. This
representation mechanism is practiced in UK, Canada through Financial
and Expenditure Committee and Finance Committee.
❑ Reluctance in conducting budget review due to article 70.
❑ more inclined towards activism in their respective constituencies
❑ Public Hearing: 9 parliament introduced public hearing with support
from donors. “PRODIP” project had it pre-conditioned for technical help.
Seven committees had in all total 28 hearing.
❑ labor law ( BLR 2015) got amended by incorporating ideas generated during the
hearing
Role of parliament in ensuring good
governance:
• Strong parliamentary leadership:
• Institutional capacity building: Separate the parliamentary secretariat
from public/civil service and ensure its political neutrality
• Recruit and train parliamentary staff in relevant fields.
• Establishing research support unit with in the parliament Intra-regional training for
MPs on financial and policy making process.
• Procedure:
• Ensuring fair an defective use of power for example: orders of the day, motions of
adjournment, resolution and vote thanks
• establishing televised ‘question hour’ when the prime minister and other minister’s
are subject to daily direct questioning
• increasing attendance in the parliament
• Reform procedure to ensure fair treatment of all MPs in time allocation.
Constituent assembly and the legislature
• 7th march 1973, life of a sovereign parliament seemed to have begun in bd, constitutional provisions ensured in
the independence and sovereignty of the legislature in clear terms but executive centered elite and strong
party system posed a serious threat to capacity in policy making or oversight activities. For example article 70 .
Justification was that time had a lack of party discipline in the country , same reason lead to acute political
instability in the then East Pakistan.. This dilemma did not have any easy solution.
• In UK the party whip forbids voting against ones own party but the leader always keep in touch with the
back benchers in order to feel public opinion and avoid rebelliousness in the party. But in Bangladesh MPs
did not have that prerogatives.
• the results of march election failed to produce an established opposition for which 20 seats were needed
but the opposition got only 6
• this absence of opposition created a serious vacuum as the role of opposition is to create a healthy tension
in the parliament otherwise the government will be uncontrolled and unresponsive. As the chief burden of
making the parliament behave is on the opposition which is adequately strong and enjoys recognition .
• how opposition makes the executive behave: by examining and criticizing what the government has done
and proposes to do through the questioning the ministers, through motions of censure and no-confidence
and through debates that accompany the passing of financial legislation.
• Unfortunately in the 1973 JS , there was no such phenomenon. The success of Congress
• modern legislature and its role in democratic governance date back to parliamentary democracy in England.
• according to new/modern perceptions legislature is a broader agency that mobilize consent of the people and
from them acceptance of its policies. This is because there is a legitimacy issue concerned not only for the
government or the party in power but also the voters. Thus expectation about the future course of govt.
policy is formed and consequently foundation of consent and acceptance for relevant govt. Programs in the
future is established.
• but the government i.e. the party in power sometimes have to take many decisions in form of laws and public
policy in addition to the commitments made before the election. Legitimizing decisions/mobilize cons (Moblize
in their favor are issues that take legislature into a more difficult terrain. Solution to this may come from
legislative representors , particularly the treasury bench members. They can mobilize consent between as well
as at elections. Through mass media and public meetings this mobilization of opinion can be attempted and is
done sometimes. New laws can be discussed in detail and on a multi-party basis as much with in the legislature
as in public. This makes people aware not only about the legislative process but also enables them to
participate also. (Mobilization of opinion)
• The focus of governance and legislature should be on the process of law making(participatory , mobilization
of opinion), the background and rationale behind most of the laws (group interest vs general welfare),
enforcement of accountability of the government to the legislature (parliamentary committees), its use as a
forum for multi-party discussion on governance and on its role in promoting good governance through these
practices