PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

National Assembly is currently in the process of being reinvented as a
Digital Chamber.
When the Digital Chamber is complete, then a great deal of legislative
processes will be digitalized, including proposing and deliberating
bills, making decisions through electronic ballots, and delivering them
to the government, which will bring some very positive effects of
curbing cost and time by simplifying and removing papers from the
process. Moreover, lawmakers will be able to search real-time information
on various bills as they sit through the meetings and also effectively
question cabinet members, discuss bills, or make five minute
speeches utilizing power point or moving pictures on computers.
The Hungarian Parliament is also in the process of establishing an electronic
Parliament, with the text of every submitted proposal (proposed bills,
amendments, resolutions, draft policy announcements, reports, interpellations,
questions, etc.) available on line. Although this is primarily intended to
facilitate and improve the work of representatives, it means that the relevant
texts will also be available to citizens through Parliament’s website.
Role of an upper chamber
Most of the measures mentioned above for improving the legislative
process also involve improved coordination between the two chambers of
parliament where it is bicameral. The purpose of an upper chamber is to allow
for the more thorough scrutiny of bills, and to expose them to a different range
of opinion – whether this be a matter of state and regional perspectives, as
in a federal system, a different balance of party strength, or a wider range of
experience or expertise. A typical consequence of this exposure is to produce
further compromises in proposed legislation and, hopefully, wider public
acceptability as a result. Since democracy depends on consent, the public
acceptability of legislation is an important criterion for its effectiveness.
Keeping track of legislation
An effective parliament (I): The national level I 125
Two final issues raised by the submissions from parliaments are worth
considering here. One is concern at the increasing use by governments of
delegated legislation, which is difficult for parliaments to keep track of, and in
some cases may exceed the terms defined in the relevant law. The Greek
Parliament, for example, describes this a ‘major problem’, since ‘the
normative acts thus issued by the Government often exceed the limits of the