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Untitled
THE ULTIMATE DEMOCRATIC REFORMS
Home Page
.Political Reforms for
Nations.
Alternative Title: Democratic
Reforms for Nations
An Article
Giving Some General Suggestions for
Fundamental
and Ultimate Political Reform/Democratic Reform for Nations
HP Kedilaya
'Parijatha', Hosamane
Compound, Near Billava Sangha,
Sultan Battery Road, Boloor, Urva
Market, Mangalore - 575006, Karnataka State, India.
Phone: Res: 0824-2452023
E-mail: hpkedilaya@hotmail.com
This Article is Quoted in.....
INN,RNC: Idealistic not naive, realistic not cynical
... This week I discovered this amazing essay by HP Kedilaya
from India
on " some
general suggestions for basic/ fundamental/radical and ultimate political ...
INN,RNC: Idealistic not naive, realistic not cynical
... to have come up with this idea before, until I found a start for debate in
English on indirect elections by the completely unknown Indian HP Kedilaya. ...
 Union
of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA) Welcomes You
... As argued by HPKedilaya, the solution to problem
of defects in the political
system depends, respectively, upon the economic, education, health and law ...
Human Being is a Political Animal
As is Political System/Government so is
Citizen.
The price good people pay for their indifference to public
affairs is to be ruled by evil men — Plato
Only by visualizing the ultimate system
that is going to stay, can one give a true direction to any reformative
measures
NOTE:
• The present
form of this article may not be the final. Your valuable Suggestions in
this matter are Welcome. Give your feedback at my e-mail or postal
address, or even at Suggestion
Book which
is also available at the bottom of this article.
• Since
'nations' (nation-states) are the independent or the sovereign units of human
societies (and since 'world government' has not yet formed), the defects pointed
out and reforms suggested here refer to the political systems of the existing nations.
• These
suggestions, however, can readily be extended even to 'world government' if it
is a possibility in the future.
• The defects
and reforms mentioned here hold good for all types of democratic nations,
irrespective of the nature of the State (unitary or federal), their history,
wealth, educational level, stage of development,
geography or racial/religious composition.
• Reforms in
this article are suggested with an ultimate
democratic order in mind.
 • Each of these reforms
suggested in this article is worth trying on its own merit. However, since all
these reforms are interrelated, each reform works best when implemented along
with other suggested reforms.
Abstract
....................
It is assumed that the
administration is divided territorially into a simple hierarchical order
(tier-system) into nation, state, district, etc. and at each territorial level,
is divided functionally into three branches – the legislature, the
executive and the judiciary.
It is also assumed that
the State does not recognize political parties and that,
political parties are against democratic principles and therefore the existence
of political parties is statutorily not encouraged.
Legislature is made the
head of the State with executive and judiciary acting as its two arms.
Legislature is completely
separated from the other two powers. Elected leaders/ politicians are recruited
as legislators; trained civil servants or permanent executives, not political
executives, head the executive.
Posts of King/Queen,
President and Governors as executive heads in both Presidential and
Parliamentary systems are abolished.
Practice of elected
representatives/politicians nominating the bureaucratic and judiciary heads is
done away with and instead, the executive and the judiciary are made completely
autonomous bodies by bringing about internal democracy in their administration.
The size of the
legislative bodies is kept small and odd numbered (say, fifteen) and it is kept
same at all levels of administration.
Each administrative unit
is a single electoral constituency; each constituency is multi-membered (fifteen-membered, as decided
earlier); and all the elected members together constitute the legislative body
of that administrative unit. Each voter has multiple votes to cast and the
maximum number of votes that he can cast is same as the number of seats present
in the legislative body of that constituency/administrative unit. The voter
casts the vote by preference ballot. The fifteen top vote-securing candidates
in a constituency, are, then selected as representatives to the legislative
body of that administrative unit.
Common voting citizen, in
this new system, votes only at the lowest level of administration.
Representatives elected at the lowest level in turn elect, among themselves,
legislators for the next higher level and so on, till the highest, i.e., the
national level.
Legislators, if not common
voters, in all their functions, which involve voting, should do so by open
ballot.
Elections at all levels
are held on a continuous basis and not periodically. That is, voters can vote
on any and everyday and can change their votes as many times as they wish.
Recruitment or withdrawal of legislators is done once in six months. That is,
the minimum term of legislators is fixed at six months. (Multipurpose) Voter's
identity cards and electronic computers are made use of to ward of any
technical difficulties that may arise due to large number of voters (especially
at the lowest level) each having multiple votes to cast.
Election campaigns are
State-funded and the funding is total in the sense that the State itself
arranges for the various means of campaign. Campaigning by means other than
what is arranged by the State is made illegal. Election campaigns of all the
parties and even the independents are funded.
Full-fledged legislative
bodies are set up at all levels of administration, including lower most levels.
The Lower and the Upper
Houses are merged to form a single House. The Lower House legislators are the
true legislators because they are properly elected. They are called the Inner
or Core members (and they are fifteen in number as decided earlier). The 'Upper
House' members are also fifteen in number and are called the Outer members. The
Inner members nominate ten of the Outer members and the rest five are inducted
from the top of the losing candidates of that administrative unit. That is,
after picking the fifteen top vote- getters as the Inner members the next top
five, in order, is picked as part of the total Outer members.
The legislative body at
each level, then, would be composed of three types of legislators -- Inner Fifteen,
Outer Ten and Outer Five. The Inner members have all the three rights of a
legislator, namely, rights to discuss, to become Speaker and to vote. However,
the Outer members have only the right to discuss.
Because of 'continuous
voting' by the electors of legislators at all levels there would be movement of
legislators – the Inner Fifteen and the Outer Five – both within a
legislative body and between different levels. This movement is periodical
(once in six months), as minimum term for legislators is six months (as
previously noted). Depending upon the change of votes
legislators may move up or down the ladder.
There is no divide in this
set up of the legislature into 'ruling' and 'opposition'.
The legislative body, in
this new system, would have essentially two functions – one, legislation
and two, voting for the election of legislative body of immediately higher
administrative unit. (Obviously, this second function is not there for the
highest legislative body, i.e., at the national level.) The legislative bodies
perform only these functions and nothing else and all these functions are
performed only within legislative sessions and nowhere else.
The Speaker is elected
among and by the members by continuous voting where the members vote anybody
other than him-/herself. The results of voting are freshly effective for each
legislative session.
In addition to moderatorship, the Speaker retains the functions of
discussion and voting as well, unlike in the existing systems where Speaker's
function is confined only to moderatorship.
The emoluments and service
condition of legislators are generous and liberal. If a legislator fails to get
reelected he will, if he wants, get back his job –Government or private
– if he had one before being elected as legislator.
The State does not
recognize any political party. Therefore, there is no legal sanction for
'party-whip' or for anti-defection measures. Election symbols, if needed, are
given to individual candidates and not to parties. However, a candidate is
allowed to mention his party affiliation, if any.
The function of political
education of the masses is entrusted with an autonomous body, say, the Election
Commission. Some of the important tasks that the commission undertakes are
introduction of political education at early schooling, political campaign of
candidates for the voters, making the proceedings of legislative bodies public
through various media, encouraging non-governmental voluntary political
organizations to take up the cause of political education of the masses, etc.
geovisit();
CONTENTS (10,000 words):
PART
- 1.
Political
Reform -- Key To Social Reform or Importance of
Political Reform
PART
- 2.
Defects
in the Existing Political Systems & Some Suggestions for Reform
PART -- 1
Political Reform --- Key to
Social Reform
Or
Importance of Political
Reform
There is no
scarcity, in this world, of natural resources or, more importantly, human
talents. In spite of this, human suffering has been universal and has been deep
within each individual. Even the rich and the highly placed have not been
spared from this. This clearly shows that there exists a gross mismanagement of
the affairs of human beings and this is the root cause of all human misery.
But, since political system is the decision- or policy-making body or the nerve
center of management of human societies, it can be safely concluded that the
root cause of all human strife and suffering is the existence of defects in the
political systems. Put in other words, people have many problems in life, like
economic, educational, health, legal, etc. The solutions to these problems
depend, respectively, upon the economic, educational, health and law and order
policies of the Government, and hence ultimately upon the policy-making system
or the political system. So it can be stated that the quality of the political
system is the one that ultimately decides the quality of life of the
individuals. As is political system so is citizen. This truth was not unknown
before. Since Middle ages, people have been aware of
this in its more popular form -- as is King so is Citizen.
Man’s
political systems have, no doubt, evolved and advanced a lot. In fact, no other
fields of management, including business management, have evolved as much.
Democracy, political liberalism, constitutional State, nation-State, separation
of the powers (into legislature, executive and judiciary), rule of law,
parliamentary practice are some of the more important milestones/concepts in
our political evolution.
Nevertheless, it is
needless to say that many grave defects still exist in the prevailing political
systems. The very existence of large scale and universal human misery, as noted
earlier, is a proof of this. More direct evidence, however, can be got if one
directly observes the system itself. The most glaring of all defects is in the
process of selection of the policy-makers or the politicians.
Many of the
politicians that we have come across are politically incompetent and this is
compounded by the fact that they lack political will or inclination. They are
more known as promoters of self-interest than of the common good of the people.
The derogatory meaning, the word ‘politics’ has come to acquire, is
because of such politicians. And even, most of the existing political
disillusion among the people is due to the same reason. However, the fault, it
should be remembered, is not with the politicians as such but with the
political systems that select them.
Some of the other
well known defects of our political systems have been -- problems in fully
separating legislature from executive, problems of ‘party’-politics,
inefficiency and wastes of huge legislative bodies, lack of proportional
representation, influence of money in elections, problems and wastes of having
two legislative Houses -- Upper and Lower, lack of political participation of
the masses, etc.
In conclusion,
political reforms bring more peace and happiness than any other social change
that human beings can ever think of. That is, political reform is the key to
social reform. Existing extent of human suffering, on the one hand, and grave
defects in our political systems, on the other, make it all important and
urgent to bring about political reforms, even if this means making some radical
changes in the system without loosing sight of the ultimate desirable democratic
order.
Back to Main CONTENTS Back to TOP
PART – 2
Defects in the Existing Political Systems
&
 Some Suggestions for Reform
CONTENTS:
-
Basic Assumptions
- Divisions of Government
- Unitary or Federal State?
- Non-partisan politics
-The
Three Powers -- Functional Interrelation, Whom to Choose and Who Chooses
- Separation of Powers
- Who should head the State -- legislature, executive or judiciary?
- Whom to choose for the three Powers
- Who selects Whom
-
Constituting Legislative Bodies or Electoral Reform
- Size of Legislative Bodies
- Multi-member Constituency
- Voters (electorates) at different administrative
levels -- Relay Representation
- Secret or Open Ballot?
- 'Continuous' Election
- Funding of political campaign
- Legislative bodies at lower administrative levels
- The problem of Upper House
- Merging the Houses and Inner and Outer members
- Choosing Outer members
- Movement of legislators -- within a Legislative
body and between different levels
-
Legislative Function
- Functions of the
legislature
- Other powers of
the legislature
- Election of the
Speaker
- Functions of
Speaker
- Emoluments and
service conditions of legislators
-
Dealing Further Blows to Party-Politics
-
Political Education and Participation of the Masses
Basic Assumptions
Contents
- Divisions of
Government
- Unitary or
Federal State?
  - Non-partisan politics
Divisions of Government
For effective
administration, the government of a nation is divided both territorially and
functionally.
Territorially, the
government is divided into smaller administrative units – extent of
division mainly decided by the size of the population. The best way of
territorial division is by tier-system, i.e. dividing in a simple hierarchical
order. This means that the whole nation is taken as one single administrative
unit at the highest level, nation is divided into ‘states’ –
the first-division administrative units, states into
‘districts’– the second-division administrative units and so
on.
Functionally, the
government is divided at each level of territorial division into three organs
or powers, namely, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
Legislature is the law-making body; the executive executes or administers the
law; and the judiciary interprets the law and enforces it by punishing its
transgressors.
Unitary or Federal State?
A unitary state is one in which we find
the exercise of supreme legislative authority by one central power, while a federal state is a political contrivance
intended to reconcile national unity and power for which the legislative
authority is divided between a central or federal power and smaller units.
Neither the unitary
nor the federal principles can be said to be better or worse than the other.
Moreover, neither can necessarily fit all given situations. In general, one or
other is chosen because it is deemed more appropriate to the particular
situation. The unitary principle has usually been adopted where there is a
reasonable degree of homogeneity in the population. The federal type of
constitution has been adopted by nations having widespread diversity -
physically, culturally, politically or on grounds of race, color or creed.
The federal type
allows a great deal of legislative experimentation whereas the unitary type is
advantageous in that it is simplified and there is no waste of legislative
repetition. Thus, federalism is indicated for integrating a heterogeneous
population into a nation. However, assuming that all populations, in the long
run, move from heterogeneity to homogeneity, so should the State -- move from federal
type to, ultimately, unitary one -- so as to take full advantages of the
unitary system. At the same time, nations, which are already under unitary
system, should be responsive to possible conflicts between the centre and the
constituent smaller units in which case it should not hesitate to delegate
legislative powers to the latter.
Non-Partisan
Politics:
•
‘Sooner the party breaks the better’ -- Jane Austin (novelist).
• But the
State, at the same time, cannot ban political parties.
The principal need
of existence of political parties, it is argued, is for crystallizing the
opinions of common people on important national issues. But what we see, on the
contrary, is that party propaganda rouses factitious spirit in people and
divides not only the legislature but also the country into rival camps so that,
in effect, it nullifies democracy. It is known that whereas parliament
discusses, the parties decide. Even within a party, because of the
‘party-whip’, legislators lose their free will and independent
thinking in the matters of making policies. Legislation or politics, then,
would be more ‘party’-based than ‘issue’-based.
Besides, able persons are kept out of government because they are not members
of the party and incompetents may get elected because they are members of a
popular party. All that a voter requires to know before voting is the political
competence of the individual candidate and not what party he is in. And anyway,
one sees little difference, in the essence, among the manifestos of different
rival parties – say between Republican and Democratic parties of USA.
Thus, the
party-system has nothing to commend it and is only the result of historical
accidents. It has stayed with us for a long time and we have taken it for
granted as an inevitable and even indispensable part of our political system.
Thus one can
conclude that two-party-government is better than one-party-government
(dictatorship); multi-party-government is better than two-party government; and
the best is no-party government.
Factors acting as
cause for or necessitating a need for the existence of political parties are
traceable to the existence of certain defects in the prevailing political
systems. These are traced subsequently in relevant chapters.
Nevertheless, it
should be stressed here that non-governmental voluntary political
organizations, and not political parties, could still have roles to play in the
political processes of the society, most important of which is political
education of the masses.
The State, in principle,
does not recognize political parties. At the same time, however, it cannot ban
them either, as the fundamental rights of citizen to associate for all purposes
including political cannot be taken away. All measures to mitigate the evils of
party system, therefore, should be addressed indirectly, which is by reforming
the political system. These are considered in the subsequent chapters.
**********
Back
to CONTENTS of PART-2 Back to Main CONTENTS
 Back to TOP
The Three Powers
 – Functional Interrelation, Whom to
Choose and Who Chooses
Contents
- Separation of
Powers
- Who should head
the State - legislature, executive or judiciary?
- Whom to choose
for the three Powers
 - Who selects Whom
Separation of Powers
Originally the king
was the lawmaker, the executor of the law and the judge. But as the business of
the State increased, both in amount and complexity, there grew a need for a
convenient means of coping with this. As a result of this and the advent of
(constitutional) democracy, there evolved the normal social process of
specialization of function or division of labor and therefore, a tendency to
delegate these powers of monarchy. This resulted in the division of government
into the three departments -- legislature, executive and judiciary.
However, the basis
of democracy and (political/public) liberty rests not only in the convenient
specialization of these functions but their absolute separation in different
hands. Montesquieu's conclusion was that 'wherever
the right of making and executing the law is vested in the same man or one and
the only body of men, there can be no public liberty, because of the danger
that the same monarch or the senate should enact tyrannical laws and execute
them in a tyrannical manner'.
Though these
principles are well accepted, they are not fully appreciated by countries
following, especially, parliamentary system. In parliamentary democracies like India and UK, for example, the Cabinet (of
ministers) that is constituted out of the legislature is the executive head
(head of ministries). It, thus, performs both legislative and executive
functions. This lack of differentiation of the legislature into a purely
policy-making organ would mean (in addition to the danger of tyranny, as
pointed out by Montesquieu) that part of its time is consumed by executive
functions – to the neglect of its own policy-making function. Parliaments
in UK and India consume
considerable part of its time in interrogation of these
legislator-cum-executives on their executive performances. In the presidential
system (e.g. USA),
unlike in the parliamentary system, the executive head (President) is not drawn
from the legislature. The President and the legislature are elected by separate
elections. In that sense, therefore, it can be said that the presidential
system achieves greater degree of separation of powers than the parliamentary
system. Nevertheless, the President as executive head in the presidential
system enjoys extensive legislative power, which is co-extensive with the
legislature. Considered that way, therefore, even the presidential system has
failed in separating the powers.
Who Should Head the
State -- Legislature, Executive or Judiciary?
Logically, law
making precedes its execution, interpretation and enforcement. And besides,
only the law making is an active process whereas its execution, interpretation
and enforcement are only passive. Therefore, the legislature is of greater
importance than the executive, which administers the law, or the judiciary, which
enforces it. The legislature is concerned throughout with the problems of the
people/nation. It gauges public opinion and aspirations, expresses their
sovereign will as laws and thus determines their destiny. Hence among the three
organs of government the legislature occupies the primary place.
From all that has
been said, it is clear that the legislature should be the head of the State
with the executive and judiciary acting just as its two arms.
Legislation, as we
understand it today, in fact, is a comparatively recent development. In the
earliest democratic political society the elected representatives performed
only the executive duty and sought to evade duty of legislation, wishing to
leave it, in effect, to the king who had always performed it.
In modern government the importance of the legislative function has greatly
increased in proportion to the rise of democracy. The modern conception of
legislation, which results from the growing political consciousness of the mass
of the people in whose collective interest laws are passed, has given the
legislative organ a new democratic significance.
In practice,
however, the legislative organ is yet to receive the importance it deserves.
For, in both parliamentary and presidential systems the executive head, not the
legislature, is also the head of the State.
Whom to Choose for the Three
Powers?
Agreeing that the
ideal is to provide specialization of function and at the same time to entrust
the responsibilities in three different hands, question now arises: whom to
choose for each of the three powers?
Since in democracy
people are the masters of their own destiny, the legislature is to be
constituted by popularly elected representatives or politicians who need not be
professional administrators or experts in any field. On the other hand, the
executive and judiciary who involve purely specialist functions are to be
constituted by trained civil servants or professionals. A popularly elected
representative, being an amateur, should not try to run the executive business
at which civil servants are experts. In democracy, therefore, legislature
constitutes the political system whereas the other two parts of the government,
executive and judiciary, do not.
The practice of
recruiting elected leaders as the executive heads can create scope for
political corruption and scandal. Politicians and businessmen/industrialists,
for example, tend to form unethical nexus between them with the former favoring
the latter's business interests by misuse of executive powers and the latter
favoring the former with monetary and other benefits. Politicians (elected
representatives) retaining executive powers may, at least, partly be the cause
for the rise of two important evils, viz., 'party-politics' and corruption.
Given the amount of (illegal) money and other benefits in executive posts in
this system, the candidates (the greedy ones at that) tend to go to the extent
of forming or joining 'parties' – the political parties, as they stand
more chances of winning elections and forming the government when they are
organized into a party than when they do it individually.
Both parliamentary
and presidential systems are guilty of not following the above principle. In
both these systems, lay representatives, not professionals, head the executive.
The reason for this seemingly obvious anomaly in both parliamentary and
presidential systems is not hard to find. It may be that the elected leaders
are reluctant to relinquish the executive power partly because of hangover from
the earlier era of monarchy/dictatorship and partly because the ruling class
finds the executive powers and the glitter associated with it expedient in
meeting their personal ends – hence the prevailing peculiar situation
where the elected leaders/politicians retain executive powers and, at the same
time, head the State.
Besides, in
parliamentary system existence of titular/nominal executive heads -- Queen in UK and President and Governors in India -- is not
only redundant but also a source for further confusion.
Who Selects Whom?
Legislature is that
part of the government that assesses the opinions and aspirations of the
people, translates them into laws and thus determines their destiny. Since in
democracy the government is ultimately responsible for its actions to the lay public,
it is but natural that the common people should select (by election) the
legislature.
However, since the
executive (and the judiciary) involves specialist functions, common citizens,
not being competent to judge the executive performances, should not be used to
elect the executive. Neither the elected representative, for the same reason,
should be used to select the executive. Therefore, it is not acceptable if the
President (executive head) is elected by the lay public, as in the presidential
system or if the Prime Minister (the chief executive) is elected by the
legislators (lay representatives), as in the parliamentary system.
Agreeing that
professionals should head the executive/bureaucracy and the judiciary, question
still remains as to who should select these heads.
In the existing
political systems, the political executives – the Cabinet in the
parliamentary system and the President in the presidential system – recruit
the top of the permanent executives/bureaucrats and the judiciary by nomination.
But the political executives who are elected representatives are not competent
themselves to judge the competence of the professionals. In addition, this
practice of nomination is the primary cause for keeping the bureaucracy and
judiciary at the mercy of politicians. For complete separation of the powers or
rather, for de-linking bureaucracy and judiciary from politics, therefore, yet
another important step is abandonment of the practice of nomination of
bureaucratic and judiciary heads by the elected representatives. Who, then, are
competent to select these heads? The only people who are competent are those
who themselves do the business of bureaucracy and judiciary. That means that
bureaucrats and judges themselves should select their own heads, i.e. these
heads should be selected by internal election. Put in other words, the
executive and judiciary management should be democratized in just the same
manner as the legislature, which already functions democratically.
Thus, in
conclusion, following measures must be taken in order to completely rectify the
three powers in the matters of their functional interrelation and selection of
personnel.
• Legislature
is made the head of the State with executive and judiciary acting as its two
arms.
• Legislature
is completely separated from the other two powers. Elected leaders/politicians
are recruited as legislators; trained civil servants or permanent executives,
not political executives, head the executive.
• Abolishing
the posts of King/Queen, President and Governors as executive heads in both
Presidential and Parliamentary systems.
• Doing away
with the practice of elected representatives/politicians nominating the
bureaucratic and judiciary heads and instead making the executive and the
judiciary a completely autonomous body by bringing about internal democracy in
its administration.
******************
Back to CONTENTS of PART-2 Back to Main CONTENTS
Back
to TOP
Constituting
Legislative Bodies
Or
Electoral Reforms
Contents
- Size of
Legislative Bodies
- Multi-member
Constituency
- Preference Ballots
- Voters
(electorates) at different administrative levels – Relay Representation
- Secret or Open
Ballot?
- 'Continuous'
Election
- Funding of
political campaign
- Legislative
bodies at lower administrative levels
- The problem of
Upper House
- Merging the
Houses and Inner and Outer members
- Choosing Outer
members
- Movement of
legislators – within a Legislative body and between different levels
Size of Legislative Bodies
One important
factor that decides the efficiency of a legislative body in decision-making is
its size, i.e., number of members in it. So let us consider what should be the
ideal size of a legislative body.
Any population can
be conceived as being made up of several (overlapping) groups of different
interests and opinions. In the making of any policy, therefore, all these
interests and opinions should be well represented. Since one person, as a rule,
is not able to do this effectively, it follows that the legislature should be a
multi-member body. At the same time the size should not be too big, lest it
prevents speedy decision-making and meaningful participation of each and every
member. Countries having presidential system have decision-making powers concentrated
more at the hands of a single individual –President at the national level
(since the legislative powers of the President are co-extensive with those of
the legislature) – and those having Parliamentary system (e.g., India,
UK, etc.) usually have very huge legislative bodies.
Once it is decided
that the number should neither be one nor be hundreds, question arises as to
what, then, is the optimum or ideal size of a legislative body. Any number
between ten and twenty should be ideal, as it is more than what is needed for
representing the diverse interests and opinions existing in a society and, at
the same time, not too large to prevent meaningful participation of each and
every member or speedy decision-making. However, it has to be an odd number so
as to get clear-cut voting-verdicts in the matters of policy-making or election
of the Speaker. For our discussion purposes let us assume that for an optimum
size the elected legislative body should be fifteen-membered,
though more exact number can be derived only after some trial and error. And,
the size of legislative body should be the same at all levels of
administration, since the number of types of interests and opinions existing in
a population is more or less same irrespective of its size.
Multi-Member Constituency
Having fixed the number
lets us move on to see how to get this number (of legislators) by election.
The usual
constituency arrangement has been the division of an administrative unit at
each level into a number of smaller territorial electoral constituencies each
returning a single member, or at most, two members securing the highest votes.
But a single representative is not sufficient, as discussed before, to
represent the manifold interests and opinions that are there both across the population
and within each individual. That is, in this system, minority interests and
opinions are not represented in policy-making. Further, votes garnered by a
winning candidate, even if he wins with a large margin, would rarely be more
than forty percent of the total cast in his constituency. Thus, the remaining
sixty percent of the voters go unrepresented. Another important drawback of
constituting a legislative body by breaking the unit into smaller
constituencies is that candidates tend to become regionally biased whether in
promising the voters or, if elected, in performing legislative functions. These
aspects make the representation not only insufficient but also disproportional.
Disproportional representation, in addition to being directly disadvantageous,
could also favor the rise of another menace, namely, the party-system. Yet
another drawback of single-member constituency is that a candidate who is
placed second, by votes, in one constituency might actually do better, in terms
of getting votes, than several other candidates who are placed first in other
constituencies. That is, there is no guarantee in the existing method that all
the winning candidates are the toppers of that administrative unit. Further,
the size of the legislative bodies constituted by breaking an administrative
unit into smaller constituencies would depend on the population of that
administrative unit. That means that the size of legislative bodies at national
and state levels will be very huge. Therefore, it is advantageous, for many
reasons, to elect several representatives from a single constituency.
Thus, in summary,
administrative unit at each level should be a single electoral constituency;
each constituency should be multi-membered (fifteen-membered as proposed earlier); and all the elected members
of a constituency should together constitute the whole legislative body of that
administrative unit.
If an electoral
constituency is multi-membered, each voter, then, has
the right to have a say in the selection of each and every member of the
legislative body. For this reason and also in order to enable to get the large
number of representatives from a single constituency, a voter should have
multiple-votes to cast and the maximum number of votes that he can cast should
be same as the number of seats present in the legislative body of that
constituency/administrative unit. That is, the voter should have up to fifteen
votes to cast (if legislative bodies are fifteen-membered)
and the fifteen top vote-securing candidates in a constituency are, then,
selected as representatives to the legislative body of that administrative
unit.
Preference Ballots
In a multi-member constituency a voter would
have multiple votes to cast – same
as the number of seats present in the legislative body of that constituency.
A voter is allowed to rank his first choice, second choice, third, and so
on. Voters rank as many as they care to — but more complete ballots
may be more effective. This kind of ballot recognizes many gradations and
subtleties in opinions or priorities. It curbs false dichotomies, increases
choices that polarize voters and decrease conflict.
Voters (Electorates) at Different Administrative
Levels – Relay-Representation
What is in vogue,
generally, is that the common voting citizens directly elect the
representatives for all the levels of administration. But since the average
individual is better able to relate his problems with those of his locality
than with those of the nation, he would do more justice, as a voter, if his voting
were restricted to the election of his local government. This would also spare
him the hardships of voting several times for the various levels. Moreover, the
need for crystallizing the opinions of common people on national issues and
therefore, also the need for existence of political parties, is obviated as all
that the common people need knowing, in this proposed new system, is the
problems of their own locality.
Therefore, the
common voting citizen should vote only at the lowest level of administration.
Who, then, will elect legislators for the higher levels?
The representatives
elected at the lowest level should in turn elect, among themselves, legislators
for the next higher level and so on, till the highest, i.e., the national
level. (This scheme can even be extended, when the condition becomes ripe, even
to form 'world government'). In such a system, representation at the lowest
level would be direct and at the higher levels more indirect. And voting or
representation in such a system would be a sort of relay-voting or relay-representation.
To illustrate this
further, suppose a nation is organized into three levels of administration –
district, state and national. Common citizens elect the district legislators,
fifteen in number (as proposed earlier), for their respective districts; all
the district legislators of a state would elect, among themselves, fifteen
state legislators; and all the state legislators of the country would elect,
among themselves, fifteen national legislators. In other words, in this
illustration, a district legislator who is the local legislator is the people's
representative, a state legislator is the people's representatives'
representative and a national legislator is people's representatives' representatives' representative. In yet other words,
ordinary citizens constitute the electoral college (a
body of voters) for the election of the legislative body at the lowest level –
the district level, all the district level legislators of a state would
constitute the electoral college for the election of state legislators and so
on. All the legislators, thus, except of the national level, would have, in
addition to their legislative functions at their own level, also the function
of electing legislators for the next higher level. A candidate, thus, aiming to
the legislative office of higher level should have earlier passed through all
the election hurdles at the lower levels. Besides, any legislator of higher
level, in this system, who fails to get re-elected for that level would automatically
fall down to the legislative body of the immediate lower level.
[However, since the
size of the electoral college at all levels except the lowest, in this new
system, would be small (few hundreds), for getting meaningful results, a
legislator at any level should vote anybody other than himself.]
Apart from the
advantage that right persons would vote at each level of administration in the
election of legislators, this new method establishes, for legislative bodies of
different levels, a smooth continuum for recruitment of legislators or for
legislative interaction. Furthermore, this method is an in-built way of
eliminating the non-serious contenders at all levels except the lowest. Another
very important advantage of this electoral reform is its simplicity. And one of
the advantages, in turn, of being simple is that all people, including common
voters, can easily understand, follow and participate in the political
processes, making the system more successful. Besides, since only campaigning
to the ordinary citizens entails much cost for candidates – in terms of
time, energy and money, this new system makes the political campaigning easy
and economical for electing legislative bodies at all levels except the lowest.
Reduction of costs, in turn, makes it feasible for introduction of yet another
vital electoral reform, namely, State-funding of election campaign.
Secret or Open Ballot?
As noted by John
Stuart Mill, 'voting should not be secret, because voter is a trustee for the
public whose act should be publicly known'. However, this should not apply to
ordinary citizen as he is vulnerable to coercion (by head of his family,
employer, etc.). A legislator, on the other hand, should perform his voting
(during legislation, in the election of the speaker and, as in this new system,
in the election of legislators for the higher administrative level) under the
eye and criticism of the public just like his performance of any other public
function. In other words, a legislator in all his functions, which involve
voting, should do so by open ballot.
'Continuous' Election
How often the
elections have to be held? What is in practice everywhere is the periodical
election – once in four or five years. The major drawback of this is that
candidates once elected cannot be recalled until the next elections even if the
voters realize later that the performances of the representatives are not up to
the mark. Another important problem resulting from holding elections in such
long intervals is that often the composition of the legislative body might
change drastically and suddenly soon after elections rendering the system
unstable. Yet another drawback is that it is not possible for all the voters to
be available on a single day – the polling day, preventing the
participation of many.
An alternative,
without the drawbacks of periodical election, is what can be called as the
'continuous election'. By this, it means that polling should not be confined to
a single day but should be held on a continuous basis on any and every day and
as and when the voter feels like voting or changing his vote/s. That is, there
should be provision for voters to vote on any day and change their votes any
number of times. For this, the polling booth should be open and available
continuously throughout the year, just like a post office. This goes well with
the natural tendency of voters who always keep a continuous vigil on the
performances of their legislators. It would be more practical, however, if
counting of votes and announcement of results and accordingly recruitment or
withdrawal of legislators is done on a less continuous basis. The minimum term
of a legislator can be fixed as six months. Terms of lesser duration are not
practical as change of an administrative level for a legislator, which is a
possibility in the proposed new political system, as explained before, also
involves the hardships of moving of the residence of the legislator along with
his family from one place to another.
This method of
continuous voting can easily be adopted for election of legislators in all
higher levels, as the voters involved in these are legislators themselves (as
explained before) who are small in number and politically more mature than the
average citizen. But there can be difficulties in making the common citizen
adapt to this continuous voting method. There can also be technical
difficulties in registering the votes because the common voters are in large
numbers. However, these difficulties can be easily overcome if (multipurpose)
voter's identity cards and electronic computers are made use of.
Thus, continuous
election is advantageous in that elected members who are not performing can be
recalled; change of composition of the legislative bodies would be gradual
rendering continuity and therefore, also stability to legislative bodies and
enables more people to participate in elections. And because of its potential
to recall legislators this method of continuous election, working along with
'relay-representation' proposed earlier, acts as a continuous internal check
against non-performance, irregularities, autocratic behavior or any other
misconduct of legislators – minimizing the need for any other form of
check.
Funding of Political
Campaign
Election campaign
costs being very huge, if it is left to the candidates to finance their own
campaign, as has been the practice, then the rich
would have an edge over the poor in winning the elections. With the result,
political talents among the poor go largely untapped. Moreover, elected
candidates tend to become corrupt in order to recover the expenses of not only
the previous elections but also of the future. Besides, politicians and
businessmen/industrialists tend to form unethical nexus between them with the
former favoring the latter's business interests through legislation and the
latter funding the former in elections. Self-funding of elections gives rise to
yet another evil, viz., 'party politics'. Since candidates are able to collect
more funds when they are organized into a party than when they do it individually,
it follows that they tend to form or join 'parties' – the political
parties. In other words, the major reason, among others, for the existence of
political parties is the necessity of fund-collection for fighting elections.
In such a set up it is natural that industrialists would establish the nexus
with political parties rather than with individual politicians. This nexus,
then, would be of larger scale, more formidable and, therefore, more dangerous
than that with individual politicians. Besides, because of this party-system,
politicians who have contributed or collected more funds, and not necessarily
those who have more political acumen, would have more say in the affairs of the
party and, if they come to power, also in the governance.
So, there should be
State-funding of election campaigns. It should be cautioned, however, that
funding should not be on the lines of what Germany is following. There the
State refunds the election expenses of the candidates without it being directly
involved in providing the means of campaign. In addition, only the established
parties are funded, which unduly discourages new parties and the independent
candidates. Thus, the funding should be
for all candidates and the State should itself arrange for the various
means and instruments of campaign (like newspapers, pamphlets, posters,
public platforms, TV-interviews, etc.) and campaigning
by means other than what is arranged by the State should be made illegal.
This makes campaigning not only economical and hence more feasible but also
uniform and hence, fair for all the candidates.
State funding,
however, should be so modified as to suit the new methods of election suggested
in the preceding sections, namely, relay-voting and continuous voting.
(Thus the main causes of
corruption in the prevailing societies are, one, lack of separation of the
legislative from the executive function two, lack of political participation of
the masses and three, candidates funding their own election campaign. All these
causes have been already addressed by the proposed reforms in this article)
Legislative Bodies at Lower
Administrative Levels
Though it is well
accepted, at least in theory, that administrative units should have all the
three organs of governance at all levels, what is generally in practice is that
full-fledged legislative bodies exist only at higher levels of administration,
say, at national (central) and state levels and not at lower levels. This is
true of both federal and unitary types of existing governments. The legislative
body in a unitary government is full-fledged and all-powerful at the centre but
rudimentary with limited legislative powers at the state and lower levels. In
the case of a federal state though both central and state legislative bodies
are full-fledged the lower ones are usually rudimentary and neglected. In the
three lower most levels of governance in India – districts, taluks and panchayats – the legislature are either
absent or, if present, have limited policy-making powers. This anomaly leads
not only to dictatorship of the executive (bureaucrats) at the lower levels but
also to concentration of power in the hands of legislators of the higher
levels. Further, this curbs local leadership, local talent and local initiative, therefore also the development of politics from
grass-root levels and alienates the masses from the leaders and political
processes. All these, in turn, could create a need for existence of political
parties for apprising the common people of political issues of the land and
thereby invite the evils of 'party-politics'.
Therefore,
full-fledged legislative bodies should exist at all levels of administration,
including the lowest ones.
The Problem of Upper House
The primary reason
for the need of an Upper House/Second Chamber is for acting as a 'check' for
the functioning of the Lower House that is constituted by popularly elected
representatives. Another reason is that many politically talented people cannot
contest the elections because of their professional commitments or, more commonly,
because their soft nature or weak constitution (old-age or sickness) cannot
stand the 'roughs and toughs' of the elections. How to make best of these
talents? To provide for these needs most countries have Upper House or Second
Chamber that is in addition to and independent of the Lower House or First
Chamber. But the main objection to this arrangement is that best results in a
group discussion are obtained by making all the talents sit together and not by
breaking them into two groups and make them discuss separately. Besides, this
separation and also the fact that the Upper House is subordinate to the Lower
in terms of decision-making have rendered the former mostly redundant.
Moreover, having two Houses is waste of time, energy and money. However, it is
quite understandable for countries like India
and Britain
to have two Houses, for the numbers of members in both the Houses are too huge
to allow any merging, in the existing system.
Merging the Houses –
Inner and Outer Members
So, now, the
crucial question is how to merge the two Houses and differentiate, at the same
time, the roles of the two types of members -- one, the elected members of the
Lower House and the other, Upper House members.
Once merged, let us
call, for convenience, the Lower House members as the Core or Inner members
(because they are the properly elected and hence the true legislators) and the
Upper House members as the Outer members. Since the Inner members are the true
representatives of people, it is imperative that they should have all the
rights of legislation including, more importantly, the voting rights (in
policy-making and in the election of the legislative body of the next higher
level, as in the newly proposed political system) and the right to become the
Speaker. However, the Outer members would have only the other right –
right to participate in legislative discussions. In other words, the Outer
members can influence the legislation by way of only discussion but they cannot
vote or become the Speaker.
Choosing Outer Members
We have already
considered how to pick the fifteen Inner members and we have just delineated
legislative role of the Inner and the Outer members. And now we shall see what
should be the size of the Outer members and how they should be chosen.
The size of the
Outer members should be about fifteen so that the total number of the members,
Inner and Outer, would be about thirty that should still be manageable in terms
of conducting discussions.
Ten of the Outer
members should be nominated by votes, by Inner members. This ten can be
composed of retired judges and executives, social scientists, economists,
diplomats, social activists, etc., who are persons of some eminence in their
respective fields. The remaining five Outer members should be inducted from the
top of the losing legislator-candidates of that administrative unit. That is,
after picking the fifteen top vote-getters as the Inner members, the next top
five in order should be picked as part of the total Outer members.
The legislative
body at each level, then, would be composed of three types of legislators,
which could be called as the Inner Fifteen, the Outer Five and the Outer Ten.
Movement of Legislators –
Within a Legislative Body and Between Different Levels (Horizontal and Vertical
Movements)
As per the
continuous voting and relay-representation methods proposed earlier, the
legislative performances of the Outer Five along with the Inner Fifteen are
subject to a continuous evaluation by voters who are either common voting
citizens or legislators of lower legislative bodies. These voters, accordingly,
can keep changing their votes. The resulting movement of legislators –
the Inner Fifteen and the Outer Five – within a legislative body and
between different levels needs some elaboration.
The movement of
legislators due to change in votes is periodical (once in six months) – as
previously suggested. Within a legislative body, an Outer Five, thus, can
anytime move, periodically, up the ladder and replace an Inner member who,
meanwhile, moves down to become the Outer Five. An Inner member can also move
up to become an Outer Five of the legislative body of the higher level.
Conversely, an Outer Five can move down and back to his lower level where he
becomes the Inner member again. Should that happen, the member at the bottom of
Inner Fifteen at that level would move down to the top of Outer Five and the
member at the bottom of Outer Five, in turn, would move out of the House and
down to Inner-Fifteen of lower level, if there is one.
The Outer Five,
thus, is a sort of stopover point for the Inner Fifteen before they fall down
to the lower level or climb up into the Inner Eleven of the higher level. This
helps to smoothen the movement of legislators from one
level to another. More important advantage of this arrangement, however, is
that since the Outer five are aspirants for the Inner membership, they serve as
effective 'check' or 'opposition' on the functioning of Inner members.
Thus, in this new
system unlike the existing ones, legislators are not divided into 'ruling' and
'opposition'; there is no threat of Government falling because of loss of
majority; and only the composition of legislative body changes gradually and
smoothly. All these are in conformation with true democratic tradition and would
pave the way to evolve a State-organism so adaptable, so flexible and
automatically self-compensating and balancing.
**********
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The
Legislature – Function, Powers and Procedures
.................
Contents
- Functions of the Legislature
- Other powers of
the Legislature
- Election of the
Speaker
- Functions of
Speaker
 - Emoluments and Service Conditions
of Legislators
Having considered
how the legislative body is to be formed, let us now see what its functions are
and how it should be performed.
Functions of the Legislature
Policies or laws
are made by the legislature (interpreted by the judiciary and executed by the
executive). The legislature is, thus, the policy-making body and since elected
representatives constitute it in democratic nations, it is also the political
body. It is concerned throughout with the problems of the people/nation and
determines their destiny by expressing their sovereign will as laws.
The legislative
body, in this new system, would essentially have two functions – one,
legislation and two, voting for the election of legislative body of immediately
higher administrative unit. (Relay-representation, a new method of
representation explained previously, necessitates this second function.
However, for obvious reasons, this second function is not there for the highest
legislative body, i.e., at the national level). The legislative body should
perform only these functions and nothing else. And it is also important to note
that all legislation should take place only within legislative sessions and
nowhere else.
The act of
legislation, to be sure, should involve setting up of social goals, assessment
of the problems of the people/region in attaining these goals and then
formulation of legislation or policies to solve these problems. For this, the
members of the body should first exchange views (discuss/deliberate) about the
desired social goals, existing problems and possible legislative measures to
solve them – all of which constitute legislative initiation; and then it
should decide, by voting, which particular legislation is to be adopted.
(Though technically it is the legislature, which initiates policy, in practice
the executive serves as the source for bulk of it, and then presents it for
approval to the legislature. Even the judiciary can be a source for policy
initiation). Since the discussion and voting have to be proper and systematic,
there arises the need of selection, among the members, a Speaker for conducting
and moderating the proceedings of legislation.
As for the second
function, i.e. voting for the election of legislative body of the immediately
higher administrative level, all the legislators of a particular level should
form a body of voters – electoral college – that should elect among
themselves (fifteen) members for the legislative body of the higher
administrative unit. To illustrate this further, suppose the administration of
a nation is divided into three tiers – nation into states and states into
districts. Then legislators of all the states of the nation will form an
electoral college for the election of the national legislature and legislators
of all the districts of each state will form an electoral college for constituting
legislative body for that state. Each electoral college should have periodical
sessions – electoral college sessions.
Campaigning by candidates and voting by members, for the constitution of
legislative body for the immediately higher administrative unit, should be done
in these sessions. Members of an electoral college, in addition, can use these
sessions for sharing views on the problems and solutions common to their
constituencies.
Other Powers of the
Legislature
Apart from the
legislative power the legislature has also some powers concerned with the
executive and judiciary functions. It has the right/power to utilize the
expertise of the executive/civil servants by way of, say, setting up
expert/fact-finding commissions. And in addition, the legislature has the right
to inspect, interrogate or censure the civil servants or to revoke any
ordinance by the executive that the legislature believes unwarranted, though,
at the same time, it cannot interfere with their day-to-day functioning.
Since it is the
legislature which should be the head of the State, as argued in the previous
section, the legislature should have also the following judicial and diplomatic
powers in addition to the above executive powers: 1) judicial power –
relating to the granting of pardons, reprieves, etc., to those convicted of
crimes and 2) diplomatic power – receiving foreign dignitaries and
ministers.
Election of the Speaker
The Speaker is
chosen by election among the Inner or Core members. (The Speaker, therefore, is
also the leader of the House.) And the voting should be by continuous voting.
This means, as explained before, that the performance of the Speaker is subject
to a continuous assessment by other members who have the right to change their
votes as and when they desire. A continuous vote-register should be maintained
and the results of voting should be freshly effective for each legislative
session. Since the number of legislators is quite small (fifteen as proposed
before), in order to get meaningful results, a voter must vote anybody other
than him-/herself.
Functions of the Speaker
The usual practice
of assigning the Speaker with the function of only moderatorship
and taking away his rights to participate in discussions and voting is not
correct, as it unduly prevents the House from gaining the services of a member
who is as good as to be elected as a Speaker. Thus, in addition to moderatorship the Speaker should retain the functions of
discussion and voting as well – very much like what is done in scientific
conferences.
Emoluments and Service
Conditions of Legislators
The emoluments and
service conditions of legislators should, respectively, be generous and liberal
and should depend upon the duration and level of their service and their
position in the legislative body – Inner or Outer. Attractive emoluments
are a necessity mainly because of the importance of the role played by
political system in the human welfare and also because drawing lesser
emoluments can easily be an excuse for legislators to go corrupt.
One important
privilege that a legislator should enjoy is that if he fails to get reelected,
he should, if he wants, get back his job –Government or private –
if he had one before being elected as legislator.
***********
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Dealing
Further Blows to Party-Politics
..............
How divesting the
popularly elected of executive function, State-funding of elections,
multi-member constituency and restriction of voting of common people to the
local levels counter the evils of party-politics are already discussed. We
shall now see what more can be done to root out this political ill.
The State, in
principle, should not recognize any political party (though it cannot, at the
same time, ban their existence). Therefore it follows that the State should not
offer any legal sanction to anti-defection measures or to 'party-whip' and
should not tag the legislators as 'ruling' and 'opposition'. (Anyway in this
new system of 'continuous election' there is no need for any anti-defection
measures. If the defection of the elected to another party is not to the liking
of the voters, they can always change their votes and terminate his membership
in the legislative body). Election symbols, if needed, should be given only to
individual candidates and not to parties (anyway the need, if at all, of
election symbols, in the new system, is only at the local level where the
electors are common people and not at higher levels where the electors are
legislators themselves). However, in the State-sponsored election campaign of
the new system a candidate should be allowed to mention his party affiliation,
if any.
All these measures
can show the existing political parties their right place, i.e., as voluntary
political organizations (for social service in political fields) as which they
may still have a useful role to play.
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Political Education
&
Participation of the
Masses
.........................
The price good
people pay for their indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
— Plato
Any political
reform is incomplete if it does not address political education of the voters,
especially, the common individuals.
The role of
literacy among the populace in the success of democracies cannot be
overemphasized. That apart, the simplicity of the new political system
suggested in the foregoing discussion is itself a great factor in making it
easy for the people to comprehend the structure and functions of their
political system. This would go a long way in encouraging the political
participation of the masses and hence in the success of the system. For more
specific and direct measures, the function of political education should be
entrusted with an autonomous body, say, the Election Commission. One important
measure that the Commission should take up is introduction of political
education at early schooling. Political campaign, i.e., informing the voters
about the 'performances' and 'promises' of political candidates, should be
another essential task of the Commission. By 'performance' it is meant what
policies are supported or opposed by the candidate in the past and by 'promise' it is meant – what policies the candidate
would support, if elected in future. Lastly the Commission should also see that
the proceedings of the legislative bodies are made public through various media
like, newspapers, television, etc. This, in addition to bringing transparency
to legislative conduct also helps the voters to continuously assess and compare
the performances of legislators and to vote accordingly. The Government should
also encourage non-governmental voluntary political organizations to take up
the cause of political education of the masses.
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