PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

More documents

Recommendations

Info

An effective parliament (I): The national level I 147 systems. The submission from the South African Parliament describes the role of its National Council of the Provinces (NCOP) in these terms: As the second chamber of South Africa’s national Parliament, the NCOP represents provincial (and to some extent local government) interests in the national sphere. Its role must be seen within the context of co-operative government, which means that national policy must be sensitive to local and provincial needs and concerns. It also means that municipalities and, particularly, provinces should not act alone or in isolation; they must be deeply integrated into the national political process. The Indian Upper House or Rajya Sabha (Council of the States) is composed of representatives elected by the elected members of the Legislative Assembly of each State or Union Territory, and, like the South African NCOP, has special responsibility for coordinating national policy and legislation across the territory of the Union. A Conference of Presiding Officers of Legislative Bodies at Centre and State levels is held annually to exchange ideas and practices. ‘The object of the Conference is to see that the parliamentary system of government grows on proper lines, that proper conventions and traditions are developed in that direction and that, as far as possible, uniformity is established in the practice and procedure in Parliament and State Legislatures.’ This coordinating role is not confined to the second chamber in federal systems. In France, the Senate has a similar role in relation to the other elected bodies throughout the territory: As the representative of local interests, i.e., citizens in their communes, departments and regions, the Senate holds «Estates General of Local Elected Officials». These events bring together all locally elected officials with the President of the Senate to deal with the problems faced by the decentralized collective bodies whose interests the upper chamber represents. The last such event was devoted to intercommunal relations. In a similar manner, the Parliament of Ukraine has established an Advisory Board on local self-government under the Chairman of the Parliament, in order to ‘strengthen local self-government, to develop a society of self-governed communities according to the European Charter of Local Self-government and to act as a mediator on legislation between parliamentary commit-
148 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY tees and local representative bodies.’ Examples of this coordinating role can be found in many parliaments. Conflict resolution A distinctive aspect of parliament’s role in promoting national integration lies in the contribution it can make to conflict resolution. Parliaments constitute a key site for resolving political disagreement through the democratic means of dialogue and compromise. As such, they have a valuable role to play in helping resolve wider disagreement and conflict within society at large. Of course such conflicts may be reflected and even intensified by the party competition within parliament, especially where this takes on a strongly partisan or ‘winner-take-all’ character. Here especially there is a responsibility on parliaments to take the lead in demonstrating the possibility of treating alternative points of view with respect and engaging in serious dialogue with them. The significant contribution of parliaments both to preventing conflict and to post-conflict resolution is recognised in the International Guidelines for Strengthening the Role of Parliaments in Crisis Prevention and Recovery (2006) jointly developed by UNDP and IPU. The Guidelines point out that the introduction of elections in post-conflict situations is too often seen as a sufficient as well as a necessary condition for peace building, while the potential long-term role for parliaments is often overlooked: Legitimate and representative governance – that is effective, based on the rule of law and respecting peoples’ fundamental rights and freedoms – is in itself the most effective means for societies to prevent, manage and recover from conflict. Parliaments often manage conflict in the political space, thus avoiding violent conflict; however, in many democratic societies, we are generally unaware of parliaments’ contributions unless they fail. Parliamentary debate, agreements between political parties, interaction between parliament and constituents and civil society, informal exchanges among parliamentarians, and compromises on resource allocation, all contribute to keeping the peace…..Experiences from recent post-conflict situations demonstrate that assistance by external actors often underestimates the productive role that parliamentary institutions and elected representatives themselves can play. This potential of parliaments is exemplified in a contributing paper by Mr. Cyril Ndebele, former Speaker of the Zimbabwean Parliament and a member of the IPU working group, to a UNDP/IPU conference on Strengthening
Page 1 and 2:
PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWE
Page 3 and 4:
ii I PARLEMENTS ET DÉMOCRATIE AU 2
Page 5 and 6:
iv I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN TH
Page 7 and 8:
vi I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN TH
Page 9 and 10:
viii I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN
Page 11 and 12:
x I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE
Page 13 and 14:
xii I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN T
Page 15 and 16:
2 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
10 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN TH
Page 26 and 27:
2. A representative parliament The
Page 28 and 29:
Electoral systems A representative
Page 30 and 31:
A representative parliament I 17 se
Page 32 and 33:
Election rules and procedures to en
Page 34 and 35:
A representative parliament I 21 Th
Page 36 and 37:
A representative parliament I 23
Page 38 and 39:
A representative parliament I 25 ge
Page 40 and 41:
A representative parliament I 27 Fu
Page 42 and 43:
Foreign Affairs in the Norwegian St
Page 44 and 45:
A representative parliament I 31 Th
Page 46 and 47:
A representative parliament I 33 ca
Page 48 and 49:
A representative parliament I 35 re
Page 50 and 51:
ment to following through a process
Page 52 and 53:
A representative parliament I 39 An
Page 54:
A representative parliament I 41 In
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 82 and 83:
4. An accessible parliament The pre
Page 84 and 85:
■ the fixed office; An accessible
Page 86 and 87:
■ collaborating with NGOs in loca
Page 88 and 89:
An accessible parliament I 75 Nowad
Page 90 and 91:
ned against excessive reductions in
Page 92 and 93:
An accessible parliament I 79 Furth
Page 94 and 95:
An accessible parliament I 81 estab
Page 96 and 97:
Extract from handbook on ‘Making
Page 98 and 99:
An accessible parliament I 85 This
Page 100 and 101:
■ a public record available on li
Page 102 and 103:
An accessible parliament I 89 The N
Page 104 and 105:
case in Switzerland, the country wi
Page 106:
An accessible parliament I 93 since
Page 109 and 110: 96 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN TH
Page 111 and 112: 98 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN TH
Page 113 and 114: 100 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN T
Page 128 and 129: An effective parliament (I): The na
Page 130 and 131: Where parliaments lack capacity thr
Page 132 and 133: that the Senate, the House of Commo
Page 136 and 137: consideration of a bill more effect
Page 138 and 139: National Assembly is currently in t
Page 146 and 147: Oversight through parliamentary que
Page 150 and 151: A case-study of oversight: security
Page 152 and 153: Anti-terrorist legislation An effec
Page 168 and 169: An effective parliament (II): Parli
Page 178 and 179: Japan’s ODA is effectively reachi
Page 196 and 197: 8. Facing the future Facing the fut
Page 198 and 199: Figure 8.1: Sources of Parliamentar
Page 200 and 201: Facing the future I 187 State: give
Page 202 and 203: and also to allow for increased par
Page 204 and 205: strengthening of both legislative a
Page 206 and 207: As regards the practicability and c
Page 208 and 209: 3. Technology assessment. This has
Page 210 and 211:
Australia Austria Belarus Belgium B
Page 212 and 213:
Organization’s programmes aimed a
Page 214 and 215:
MS. MARTA LAGOS CRUZ-COKE Executive
Page 216 and 217:
MS. DULCE MARIA SAURI RIANCHO Membe
Page 218 and 219:
Commonwealth Parliamentary Associat
Page 220 and 221:
Non-governmental organisations Cent
Page 222 and 223:
Index Note: Page numbers in bold in
Page 224 and 225:
types of, 8, 15-17, 69 voter partic
Page 226 and 227:
Myanmar, 176 Namibia, 77, 110 Natio
Page 228:
Sweden, 63, 75, 110, 112, 165 gende
show all

PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?