ஜனநாயக அமைப்பில் பாராளுமன்றம் அடிப்படை காரணியாகும். அதன் மூலமே மக்கள் நல
அரசை நடத்த முடியும். நாடாளுமன்ற நிலைக் குழுக்கள், வெளிப்படையான நடவடிக்கைகள் அவசியம்.
ஐரோப்பா நாடுகளில் நிலவும் சூழலைக் குறித்தும் இந்த பதவில் குறிப்பிடப்பட்டுள்ளது.
இது ‘தி மின்ட்’ ஆங்கில இதழில் திரு. ஜெயச்சந்திரனின் பத்தி.
There is a genuine case for live broadcasting of the testimonials of
important public officials before parliamentary committees.
Last week, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel appeared before
the parliamentary standing committee on finance for a second time this year.
But even on this occasion, Patel expressed his inability to apprise the
committee of the total value of old notes that have returned to the central
bank after the massive currency swap exercise undertaken last year. There is a
great yearning among people in general, and not just the members of the
parliamentary committee, to find out this information because almost everyone
in the country was involved in the currency swap exercise. But the public could
not watch the proceedings of Patel’s testimony before the committee; one had to
rely on source-based media reports.
In contrast, the testimony of James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) director who was fired by US President Donald Trump, before
the Senate intelligence committee was watched live by people across the world.
Portions of his testimony were carried live by some TV channels even in India.
After all, the drama of the investigation into Russian links with the Trump
presidential campaign—the episode which formed the context of Comey’s
firing—made for sensational viewing. A few years ago, the grilling of media
tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch by a British parliamentary
committee had an audience across the globe, including in India. Certainly, a much
bigger audience was interested in Patel’s testimony before the parliamentary
committee.
It is important, at this point, to make a distinction between regular
deliberations of the parliamentary committees and testimonies of important
public officials before these committees. There is a reasonable argument
against broadcasting, or even providing physical access to the public to
regular meetings of the committee. Away from the gaze of the camera, the
members can exchange their frank opinions without being tempted to indulge in
public posturing. But there is a genuine case—as has been previously argued by
Chakshu Roy of PRS Legislative Research (goo.gl/GyDQoA)—for mounting some
cameras in the room for testimonials. The process of taking evidence by the
select committees in the UK—from where India derives its parliamentary
system—is open to the public with very few exceptions.
Beyond the testimonials, there is enough room to push for more transparency
even in regular committee meetings. The UK parliament keeps some of its select
committee meetings open to the public and publishes a calendar of such meetings
in advance. The meetings of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in
the US are open to public except in a few circumstances when the matter being
discussed requires confidentiality owing to reasons of national security,
prosecution of a criminal offence, trade secrets, etc. The committees of the
European Union Parliament are open to the public and the proceedings are
broadcast live. In South Africa, the constitution itself provides that the
legislature cannot exclude the public and the media “from a sitting of a
committee unless it is reasonable and justifiable to do so in an open and
democratic society.”
In India, there have been rare examples of a few state legislatures
throwing their committee meetings open to public as a one-off case. Parliament
can take the lead and allow for public participation in certain important
committee meetings. This is especially warranted in cases where public interest
is extraordinarily high. The decision on which meeting has to be made open can
be vested with a high constitutional authority like the speaker. In other
cases, the presence of cameras can indeed lead to greater histrionics and thus
dampen the quality of proceedings. And therefore, the cause of transparency can
be better served by releasing transcripts of the meetings after a stipulated
period of time.
But these reforms will not be successful in the prevailing political
culture of the country. The legislators in advanced democracies in Europe and
North America are free to take their independent positions and they don’t
necessarily toe the party line on each and every issue under the sun. In India,
the political culture has been marred by the whip system of political parties,
the anti-defection law and the lack of intra-party democracy. If individual
legislators are unshackled from party lines, they will be encouraged to expend
more effort in studying the matter to be discussed in committee meetings. They
will also be freer to honour the views of their respective constituents rather
than be bulldozed by high command fiats. The voters, in turn, can follow and
vote on their representative’s legislative performance—it remains an
under-appreciated concern in India that so many voters choose their legislators
on parameters of local development, which is essentially the responsibility of
the executive.
The German Bundestag meets in Berlin’s Reichstag building, which has a
glass dome at the top. Ordinary folks are allowed to climb the glass dome and
they can gaze over the legislators at work from the top. The symbolical meaning
is that people are above parliament. The Indian Parliament doesn’t have such a
dome but it is the principle of superiority of citizens that is more important.
And Indian people deserve greater transparency. Live broadcast of testimonials
before parliamentary committees is a good low-hanging fruit to start with.
#நாடாளுமன்ற_ஜனநாயகம்
#parliament_democracy
#KSRadhakrishnanpostings
#KSRpostings
கே.எஸ்.இராதாகிருஷ்ணன்
21-07-2017
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