PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

128 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
hierarchy and discipline can act to prevent members from raising
concerns and issues that might make the government uncomfortable or
threaten party unity. The party leadership can command much loyalty
from its members and impose firm discipline because members rely on
their parties for a place on the party list and, hence, their seat in
Parliament. This can also be an impediment to a Committee’s ability to
exercise its oversight function effectively.
This context of power between and within political parties needs to be
kept in mind when the different modes of parliamentary oversight are being
discussed below. There is no such thing as a parliament’s oversight over the
executive as if parliament were a single uniform and cohesive body; all oversight
is mediated via the struggle and competition between parties, and how
this may be seen to play with the public at large. In particular, it is minority or
opposition parties within a legislature which give a necessary ‘edge’ to the
different modes of oversight; in a parliamentary system they are typically
coordinated through an official or unofficial ‘shadow cabinet’ in a
Westminster tradition.
Oversight through the committee system
The most systematic method for oversight of the executive is by parliamentary
committees which track the work of individual government departments
and ministries, and conduct specific investigations into particularly salient
aspects of their policy and administration. Many parliaments have reformed
their committee systems to enable them to parallel the respective government
departments and their members to develop appropriate expertise accordingly.
In many countries these are joint committees of both chambers of parliament.
Although even specialist committees are unable to be comprehensive in their
coverage of the respective department’s work, it is sufficient for accountability
that the department knows that they could investigate any aspect and do so
rigorously, even if in practice they have to be selective.
Here is how the South African Parliament describes its reformed
committee system:
Some tasks, particularly those involving detailed consideration of
matters, are best performed by a smaller group than the House sitting
in plenary, and it is in this respect that committees can play a vital role
in exercising oversight of executive action. Since 1994 the committee
system has seen extensive changes that have facilitated committees in