PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

A representative parliament I 31
The effective organisation of business is an issue that occupies all parliaments,
and it will be examined in chapter 6. Here it will suffice to point out
two different ways in which the problem raised from Sweden is addressed by
other parliaments. One is the route taken by the Italian Camera dei Deputati,
of achieving strict agreement in advance on the time and length of all contributions,
‘including personal interventions by deputies who are not speaking on
behalf of a parliamentary group’. The other is simply to expand the time available.
For example, in the Indian Lok Sabha an institution has emerged called
‘Zero Hour’, which takes place after the formal Question Hour and before the
beginning of regular listed business. It has been described as follows:
The emergence of Zero Hour can be traced to the early sixties when
issues of great public importance and urgency began to be raised by
members, sometimes with the prior permission of the Speaker or some
other times without such permission. Members are free to raise any
matter – international, national or local – that concerns them. Zero
Hour has been described in terms such as ‘waste of public money’,
‘mad hour’, ‘a great beginning of an evil day’ and ‘an unwanted
thing’. But it has become lively and important. Sometimes it is
regarded as the biggest hurdle for presiding officers to transact normal
business, at others it is seen as something original in the way of
parliamentary lexicon and practice.
A more radical way of increasing the amount of parliamentary time available
for ordinary members has been the introduction of a parallel chamber.
The Australian House of Representatives, which was the first to develop such
an institution, called the Main Committee, sees this as its most significant item
of recent reform. ‘This body cannot commence parliamentary business and it
cannot make a final decision on such business, but it can do everything
in between. It has dramatically increased the amount of available time for
government business and private members’ business, permitted ongoing
debates on parliamentary committee reports and provided members with more
opportunity to debate matters.’ A similar parallel chamber, called Westminster
Hall, has been introduced in the UK House of Commons.
Gender equality
Ensuring that women are able to play a full part in parliamentary work is
not only a matter of expanding their opportunities for access to elective office.
It also requires that parliament’s own arrangements are such as to facilitate