PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

e under an obligation because of some benefit received for services rendered
or anticipated, say as a parliamentary advisor or informal spokesperson.
Most parliaments prohibit members from formally contracting themselves to
outside bodies to act in parliament on their behalf, as in this resolution of the
UK Parliament dating from an attempt by a trade union in 1947 to give
instructions to a member:
It is inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a
Member to his constituency, and with the maintenance of the privilege
of freedom of speech, for any Member of the House to enter into any
contractual agreement with an outside body, controlling or limiting the
Member’s complete independence and freedom of action in parliament…the
duty of a Member being to his constituency and to the
country as a whole, rather than to any particular section thereof.
Yet the line between a formal agreement to promote the interests of an outside
body, and a tacit understanding to do so in return for some remuneration,
is a very fine one. It is for this reason that a parliamentary list of ‘registrable
interests’ of members will typically also include: consultancies and retainerships;
gifts and hospitality; travel expenses and other payments in kind.
A further ‘grey area’ concerns the extent to which it is legitimate for
parliamentarians to undertake other paid work when they are paid a salary for
carrying out their parliamentary duties on a full-time basis. Some parliaments
take the view that it is advantageous for their members to be engaged in paid
activities outside the political sphere, though the public is rarely consulted
about this. In any case it is difficult to prevent parliamentarians from engaging
in free-lance work such as journalism, broadcasting on current affairs, or writing
of all kinds, which could be seen as a natural extension of parliamentary
activity. Again, the requirement to declare all sources of income in a register
of interests puts the issue in the public domain, where any potential conflict of
interest is open to judgement by other parliamentarians and the electorate.
Registers of interests
A parliament that is accountable I 101
Most of these ‘grey areas’ of potential conflict of interest, then, whether
concerning ownership of assets, receipt of benefits or other paid employment,
can be dealt with by the principle of transparency, through declaration in a
register of interests. An example of a list of ‘registrable interests’ which
includes all the items mentioned above is this one from the South Africa: