PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

that the Senate, the House of Commons and the Library of Parliament
each have access to a non-partisan professional staff distinct from the
public service……While public servants in the bureaucracy may move
from one department to another through the course of their careers,
parliamentary staff tend to make their career serving Parliament in
their respective institution.
This model of a professional parliamentary service with its own organisation
and career structure is now becoming widely accepted, in parliamentary
and presidential systems alike. It recognises that serving parliament is a
distinctive activity where, given the nature of party competition, the norms of
non-partisanship and professional discretion are at a special premium.
Parliamentary autonomy here also includes the development of independent
legal counsel to advise parliament on the legal dimensions of government
policy, as well as on legislative drafting. The Israeli Knesset, for example, has
its legal services concentrated in a single department, which deals with all
the different legal aspects of parliamentary business.
Budgetary control
An effective parliament (I): The national level I 119
A second aspect of a parliament’s independence is control over its own
budget. The importance of this is emphasized in a statement of principles on
parliament-executive relations made at an IPU regional seminar on parliament
and the budgetary process:
In accordance with the fundamental principle of the separation of
powers, the internal budget of the Parliament should be drawn up
under the sole responsibility of the House, and subsequently presented
to the Executive to be incorporated into the national budget. The
Executive is not to judge the appropriateness of the resources requested
by Parliament to carry out its functions. (General Report presented
by Mr. Lahaou Touré (Mali), General Rapporteur, Bamako (Mali),
1-3 November 2001)
This principle has variable application in practice. On one side is a parliament
such as that of France, whose financial autonomy is described as
‘absolute, both in respect of the way the budget is drafted and as regards the
voting and implementation procedures’. On the other side are a number of new
parliaments, especially in Africa, described in the ASGP report as having ‘the
legitimate aspiration’ to free themselves from government supervision, in
particularly from the Ministry of Finance.