Introduction To The Parliamentary System

(a) England

• The British parliament is valued as the earliest parliament in today's world.

• It is called as the "Mother of Parliaments"

• It was formed in 1707

(b) is incorrect because French Parliament was formed in 1789

(c) is incorrect because US parliament was formed in 1789

(d) is incorrect because Parliament in Nepal was formed in 2015.

(a) Prime Minister

The Prime Minister of India is the chief and executive head of the government. He also has the roles of:

• the leader of the majority party in the parliament

• chief consultant to the president

• Head of the council of ministers.

(b) is incorrect because the lok sabha speaker has the roles of:

• full authority of the loksabha

• maintaining discipline and modesty in Loksabha

• Permitting the moving of various kinds of decisions.

(c) is incorrect because the president has the roles of :

• The chief of Indian Armed Forces

• The authority to dissolve Loksabha, if needed

• The authority to appoint the prime minister

(d) is incorrect because Governor has the roles of:

• Appointing Chief Minister and other ministers of the State

• Advising the CM and other legislative members of improved conduct of the state

parliamentary system is a form of Government in which the rulers are elected by the people. It is based on election where those currently in power have a reasonable chance of losing. In a democracy every adult citizen has one vote and each vote has the right to elect their representatives. The final decision making power is with those elected by the people called as representatives.

There are clear reasons for India to be the parliamentary system of government. They are:

• In a parliamentary system leaders from various communities and the smaller groups form association to the majority. The parliamentary system is also fine in protecting against a one-man rule.

• In 1947 India adopted the Parliamentary form of democracy. India was under the British rule till then and thus it is similar to British model of parliamentary.

• India is the land of diversities in culture. Therefore representations from every field are to be guaranteed. Therefore parliamentary system was the most convenient one.

• The executive (law making) and the legislative (law executing) branches are linked to each other and Prime Minister is the head of the government. This provides the smooth functioning of the democratic system.

• The members of Lok Sabha are directly elected by the people. The members of Rajya Sabha are indirectly elected by the members of Legislative Assemblies. This helps in democratic maintenance in India.

• The Parliament functions under well written Rules and procedures known as ‘Rules of Business of Parliament’. It has the important role to carry out different social affairs.

• In India, each state government has legislature which is known as Legislative Assembly. Grama Panchayath, Block Panchayath, District Panchayath, Town Panchayath, Municipalities, Municipal Corporations, and Area Development Authorities etc have its own law making body known as councils. The Local bodies perform their responsibilities with the support of common people.

• Responsibility of Council of Ministers is checked by techniques like Question Hour in the Parliament houses

Democracy wins to deliver its purpose when democratic norms are practised well. Corruptions in the legal, executive and political sects of the government and destruction of electoral reforms etc create problems in India’s democratic system. Steps are to be taken for maintaining India’s parliamentary pattern of Government.

The Parliament is a legislative, elected body of government. Therefore it is important to consider the opinion of both the ruling party and the opposition. The opposing viewpoints are good in all cases. It increases the ability to view an issue from all the points of thought. In the case of parliamentary system, debates are carried out in both the houses of it. Lok sabha and rajya sabha discuss on all the fields of social life and take important decisions for common citizens. The importance of such discussions can be pointed as:

• The parliamentary members discuss the issue from all its perspectives. The ruling party and the opposition debate on it and pass the ‘bill’ which is expected to be beneficial to the social life of common people.

• The act of discussions and deliberations are an important feature of parliamentary system. The members of the ruling and opposition parties speak not for their personal interests, but for majority of the people.

• The laws and decisions which are harmful to the people can be discarded though the discussions.

• The supreme authority of taking decision cannot be given to a particular person or party when discussions are carried out.

• Getting members’ opinion from diverse perspectives is a big way to solve a situation.

• Debates are made by different party members. The spokesperson (speaker) will remain neutral and takes decision based on the majority.

Thus the parliamentary debates are the key-process to the democratic system of government. It helps the parliament to perform three functions: representing the citizens, making laws, and managing the government.

responsible government is answerable to parliament as it has members who are always directly elected. Moreover, it is the principle of any democratic government. A responsible government cannot carry out functions as per its whims and fancies as it is directly responsible to the Parliament. Eg: India, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia etc.

By definition, “Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system( Parliamentary system developed by UK) of parliamentary democracy”.

The important characteristics of the presidential system of government are:

• The President is the executive head of the whole system.

• The executive, legislature and judiciary are separated and are not inter-related.

• The President has ultimate powers to decide on any law and he appoints the cabinet of ministers.

• The President is directly elected by people

By definition, “A presidential system is a democratic and republican system of government where a head of government leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch.”

Opposition parties are important in any democratic government which is formed ‘by the people’. It is important because:

• It questions the activity of the ruling Government and speaks for the common people.

• It stays watchful so that the Government make no terrible steps harmful to the common people

• It informs people about the unnecessary bills which are risky to the social life.

Parliament of India is the highest legislative body of India. Our country is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government. It consists of two Houses – Lok Sabha (House of the People) and Rajya Sabha (Council of States). The President of India has the power to call the two Houses of Parliament or to dissolve the Lok Sabha.

It is very difficult for a common man to understand the bureaucrat proceedings in parliament. The official proceedings and terms are also complicated. But parliamentary debates are witty, reasonable and simple to watch. Therefore it is important to understand the basic details of both the houses of parliament.

The Rajya Sabha

• Meaning of Rajya Sabha is the “Council of States” and it is the upper house of the Parliament of India.

• Membership is limited to 250 members, 12 of whom are chosen by the President of India (nominated members) for their expertise in specific fields of art, literature, science, and social services.

• The remaining members are elected by state and territorial legislatures.

• Terms of office are for six years and one-third of the members facing re-election every two years.

The Lok Sabha

• Lok Sabha is composed of representatives of the people chosen by direct election.

• The maximum strength of the House predicted by the Constitution is 552 which is made up by election (530 members represent state, 20 members represent union territories, 2 Anglo-Indian community),

The observations of the proceedings from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are:

• The meeting is in the central Hall for Joint Sittings of both the Houses in the Parliament house.

• The Speaker acts as both the judge of each discussion in both the houses.

• A debate round has two teams consisting of two debaters each and a Speaker.

• “Speaker” always shows the power to judge from the neutral point of view. The opinions, statements and tick-offs of the speaker is without any partialities to ruling class or opposition. One team represents the Government, while the other represents the Opposition.

• The Government team is composed of a Prime Minister, who has the opportunity to speak twice, and a Member of Government, has to speak once. But in the current session Prime Minister was absent as he was in a tour. The Opposition team is composed of a Leader of the Opposition, who has the chance to speak twice, and a Member of the Opposition, who speaks once.

• The question hour is at 11am (for an hour) in both the houses. The proceedings began. The Government proposes a specific case statement and the government team demonstrates it correctly.

• The Opposition does not propose anything. They demonstrate that the case statement is wrong.

• Arguments and discussions are carried by representatives of the opposition and ruling government.

• Finally, the Speaker decides at the end of the round, whether the Government confirms its case or whether the opposition invalidates it. The team which met its trouble more is the opposition and thus the ruling party convincingly wins. These are totally based on the arguments made in the round.

The above picture is the example of one of the printed documents about the debates in parliament .

During the Parliamentary debates, a respective member rises to ask a question or put in a short statement and the following procedures are observed:

• The debater before the talk rises from his or her seat, places one hand on top of the head and extends the other arm to show signs that he or she has a point of discussion. His/Her talk is called the Point of Information (POI)

• The debater or the person who is talking chooses to identify the point or not. The debater simply says “No thank you,” or waves the questioner off. But the questioner from opposition party did not sit down. He slightly interrupted the session.

• Later, the debater who is speaking recognizes the point, and allows the man from opposition to talk on his point of discussion

• In between, debater who speaks does not recognize the point of opposition immediately. She just left the questioner stand until it is convenient for her. Later she indicated to explain the opposition’s point of view.

• Some debaters ask a special form of POI called a point of clarification. It is because debater does not understand the case or a particular argument. The speaker tries to answer the doubt and gives explanation to ensure a confusion-free debate round. When some parliamentarians starts to raise their loud noises the speaker warns them and asks not to abuse the idea of debate and commands not to ask too many clarification questions.

• Together with the serious discussion, there is also funniness and humour in the debates.

• At the end of the day of sitting, the Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha secretariats came up. They have with them two bulletins. The first bulletin is the summary of the day’s proceedings. The second bulletin is on the important announcements provided during the day.

These are the observations of the sessions in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. These proceedings in the parliament houses are very important in building up the democratic nature of our constitution. There is no one man rule. The decisions are taken by the healthy debates and the representatives act as the tongue for common people.