Public Discussion and Parliament Sanctity
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N
Balasubramanian
In keeping
with our heritage of being ‘argumentative Indians,” there is an ongoing debate
in the media as to whether parliament (especially when it is session) has been “insulted”
by the presence and participation of some key parliamentarians belonging to the
opposition parties at Anna Hazare’s one-day token fast event at Jantar Mantar
in Delhi on the 11th December 2011, reiterating his demand for a
strong Lokpal legislation.
Clearly, established
conventions do frown upon policy announcements by the government or its
ministers and spokespersons outside of parliament when it is in session since
it impinges on parliamentary privilege. Since other members of parliament can
in no way make any official policy pronouncements on behalf of the government,
no parliamentary privilege can conceivably be breached by their expressing
themselves one way or another. Outside of parliament, shouldn’t
parliamentarians be seen, accepted and treated like any other ordinary citizen
of the country (except as constrained by conventions indicated) including the freedom
of assembly, expression and peaceful protest?
The next
issue is the choice of the forum for the exercise of such rights. Very few
people seem to consider appearing on national media to participate in
discussions on various issues even while parliament is in session. Strangely,
spokespersons of the ruling parties including even some ministers do regularly
appear on these debate shows and obviously do not see any parliamentary insult
or impropriety in such appearances. In effect, are they not expressing their
views and indeed often the views of their parties on matters under discussion
in parliament? If such participation dies not adversely impact upon the stature
and sanctity of parliament, why should airing such views in a public meeting be
considered injurious to parliament’s august personality as a revered
institution? Of late, several parliamentarians appearing on such shows in
recent times seem to have developed a newfound respect for parliamentary
privilege – they make the usual disclaimers and overly protest on their
inability to divulge any details of proceedings in committees and so on before
going on to disclose the substance of such discussions albeit shrouding them in
bikini idiom – that is revealing more than they conceal!
Writing in
the print media on the same lines also falls in to a similar category. In
common with the electronic media exposures, those articulating their views in
writing also are addressing an audience (hopefully large) on matters
concurrently under discussion in parliament without any qualms of intruding
into the domain of parliamentary privilege.
So, what’s
it that makes physical gatherings of people different? Why should people find
it unacceptable behavior on the part of parliamentarians who chose to share
Anna Hazare’s podium? A particularly inane reason offered is that only
parliament can legislate and therefore all these views should be expressed only
in parliament! Nobody is saying that others can also legislate (thank God!) in
addition to or in lieu of parliament. But liberty of the individual can
certainly find expression in many ways including participation in such open
debates and meetings so as to mobilise public opinion and pressure government
to consider and incorporate whatever it feels comfortable with in its draft
legislation for discussion in parliament.
The second
reason offered is that no one can dictate to parliament or the “elected”
government on what and how to legislate. Who can indeed dictate to parliament
except the citizens at large when voting in elections? It is fallacious to
argue that in between two elections, citizens forego their right to draw
government’s and parliament’s attention to matters they consider cannot wait
till another election. Expressions of this nature through the media and public
meetings can be polite, persuasive and often (as happens in oratorical rhetoric)
terse and peremptory but that by itself cannot be called dictating for the
simple reason that as we noted before, nobody indeed can dictate in a democracy
except the people themselves.
The third
and perhaps the worst dysfunctional argument is that after all it is only a
parliamentary committee’s recommendations that parliament as the supreme body
can and will do what it thinks appropriate. It is strange that a committee’s
report should be treated with such scant respect by the parent body
notwithstanding the substantial dissent within the committee on the
matter. I am reminded of a brilliant in-house
general counsel colleague who would refer matters from time to time for expert
legal advice to eminent lawyers outside and when such advice was received would
invariably reject the counsel with good arguments of his own and recommend his
preferred course of action! An exasperated boss would ask him why at all he
referred such matters to outside counsel at enormous cost in terms of time and
money if at the end such advice was not to be heeded, my colleague would
respond that procedurally that was the thing to do in important matters for
after all, who knew, in some instance the external advice may be so good as to
warrant acceptance internally! Referring to parliamentary committees should not
degenerate in to such procedural niceties with little or no intention to
consider their recommendations in an unbiased manner.
In democracy,
parliament is indeed intended to be the supreme body reflecting at all times
the diverse views of the people its members seek to represent. Parliamentarians
cannot afford to shut themselves up in an insulated sound-proofed edifice to an
extent that, like the three good old monkeys, they cannot see, hear or talk to
the people who elected them in the first place. If they think some civil
society teams (like Anna Hazare’s) do not reflect the opinion of a vast number
of other citizens, they should demonstrate the basis for their conclusion. Why
couldn’t MPs for example visit their constituencies to ascertain the general
feelings of the people they represent and convey to their party chiefs who can
aggregate the inputs and reach a conclusion that is not based on the views of a
party ideologue or a coterie of experts from within but rather on the feedback
from the grassroots which ultimately sustain the superstructure of the plant or
the tree. The analogy to party high commands is strikingly close!
Would this
be the ultimate panacea for all such knotty problems? I would love to think so
ideally, but I hate to concede the reality may still be different so long as
electoral reforms and intraparty democracy are not in place.
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