Erosion of Parliamentary democracy

( March 12, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The lead story of our ( Ceylon Today)  edition yesterday (11) reported that the government is planning to pass 21 Bills within two days during this week's sessions in Parliament though none of those Bills had been tabled until Friday evening.

The report also related how the Parliament staff had knocked on the door of a political party office at midnight on Friday, and to the amusement of sleepy party workers, had handed over the copies of the Bills which according to Parliament tradition, were meant to be tabled weeks prior to them being taken up by the House. However, those traditions are, more often than not, observed in the breach these days.

Last week's episode could well be proof of the farcical levels our Legislature has stooped to. However, in its original sense, Parliament is not a farce. People know, deep down in their hearts that, politics is a noble position. That deference may be fast eroding when people themselves send crooks, thugs and nincompoops to Parliament.

The primary role of Parliament is to make, amend and repeal laws, and in executing this primary task, Parliament is expected to function as a deliberative assembly in which both sides of the House would debate the pros and cons of the proposed Bills and shape them to reflect the consensus of the majority.

However, the conduct of the Sri Lankan Legislature is denigrating the very idea of Parliamentary democracy. There appears to be very little deliberation in the august House of Parliament. The role of the Legislature has been outsourced to the all powerful Executive. Bills of national importance, as well as those of strategic importance to the current regime are prepared by the inner circles of the regime and once the approval of the executive is granted, are rushed through a subordinate Parliament.

While it is true that the 21 Bills to be passed this week may not be of national importance, but that is not an excuse for MPs being kept in the dark about the proposed amendments until the 11th hour. In fact, this incident is symptomatic of a much more blatant disregard towards the deliberative role of the Legislature. It is important to recall that the majority of parliamentarians were kept in the dark until a week prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment, which drastically relegated Sri Lanka's democratic credentials.

It was also not so long ago that some 116 odd ruling party parliamentarians signed on a blank paper calling for the impeachment of the Chief Justice, without having a clue as to what charges had been levelled against the Chief Justice.

It is this sycophantical subordination of the ruling party MPs that has greatly eroded the independency of Parliament.

Needless to say the elephantine majority the ruling party wields in Parliament also discourages governance by consensus. The deliberative role of Parliament is lost in name callings and overt acts of thuggery which are commonplace in the well of the House.

In its classical sense, Parliament is not meant to be where the ruling party would have its way easily. Political parties do not exact obedience; to join a party does not mean the capitulation of one's rational capabilities. In the Mother of all Parliaments, England, Parliament means Queen, Lords and Commons, and Edmund Burke called it a triple cord that no man can break. He was right that not only that Great Britain withstood the historical challenges during the evolution of parliamentary democracy; it also implanted in its former colonies, perhaps the greatest British invention.

Sri Lanka was one of the model states.

It is a shame that successive governments which ruled the country since independence reigned over the ruins of those very democratic traditions. The current regime should strive to restore parliamentary democracy and the deliberative role of the august House. Alas, its conduct appears to be accelerating the erosion of parliamentary democracy.

[ Ceylon Today Editorial ]