PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

8 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
were asked to choose two or three examples of good practice which they
thought were worth sharing with others. The results have necessarily been
uneven. On the one hand, the examples of democratic practice included in the
Guide may not be the best or most striking ones that could be found if one
were to conduct a thorough survey. They are simply ones selected and
returned by the parliaments themselves, though regrettably there has not been
space to include all of them. On the other hand, in order to ensure a reasonably
comprehensive coverage of the issues, further examples have been
drawn on from returns made by parliaments to previous surveys conducted
by the IPU, as well as other sources (which will be referenced accordingly
in the text).
Some qualifications
Two further qualifications are worth making here. The examples of democratic
practice included in the Guide are based on descriptions and documentation
provided by parliaments themselves. We were not always able to check
how well they are actually working, or whether they have been successfully
sustained over time. How far, for instance, have people actually availed themselves
of new opportunities to influence the legislative activities of a parliament,
or have a parliament’s own enhanced oversight powers made government
more accountable? Such questions would require a considerable research
programme to answer, which is beyond the scope of this book. However, good
practical examples which have been tried and endorsed by parliaments are
worth disseminating even if they may not have worked perfectly, or may have
led to problems that had not been entirely foreseen.
In this context a final word of caution is in order. Democracy in practice
often requires a trade-off between competing norms or values which cannot all
be maximised simultaneously. So parliaments have the task of facilitating a
government’s legislative agenda as well as scrutinising and amending it;
parliamentary immunities may protect representatives from executive arbitrariness
but also mask potential criminality; making adequate provision for
individual members’ initiatives may create havoc with the parliamentary
timetable and the organisation of business; constituency-based electoral
systems may foster ease of access to representatives for their electors, but produce
parliaments that are collectively unrepresentative in various respects.
There are many other such tensions and trade-offs. That they exist was clearly
evident in the returns sent in by parliaments, and they have been discussed at
various points in the text.
With these qualifications, the examples of good practice presented in the
Guide offer a profile of what a democratic parliament aspires to be. They show