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    Comparison of legislative branches

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    17 views28 pages

    Comparative Legislature

    Uploaded by

    Jess Pasibe
    Comparison of legislative branches

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 28
    THE LEGISLATIVE Process No political truth is certainly of esainas . ‘ ly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped ach the authority of more calightened patrons ofiberty than that. the hands, wheth n of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same » whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. “James Madison, The Federals, Number 47 ++ + oo oo + In this and the next three chapters we will consider the principal official licy- making institutions of modem governments—“offiial” bersise ey are formally established by constitutions and laws and generally regarded as parts of the gov" ernment-in contrast to unofficial agencies outside the government, such as political parties and pressure groups. In the course of this survey, we will see that the legislatures, executives, administrative agencies, and courts of the Western democratic nations are substan- tially alike in many ways. We will also see, however, that some democratic systems differ significantly from others in certain respects, particularly those relating to the official status and interrelationships of legislative and executive agencies. Those dif erences are so important that we begin our survey of official institutions by briefly describing and contrasting the two major forms of moder democratic govern: ments: presidential democracies and parliamentary democracies. PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES Presidential democracies differ from parliamentary democracies mainly in that presiden- tial democracies are organized according to the principle of separation of powers, which is the principle of the division of government power among coequal legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Parliamentary systems, by contrast, are governments organized acording to the prin Gple of son of powers-the executive power is exercised by a cabinet, the members of which are mostly legislators who are chosen by and are collectively and individually responsible (0 the es ae any more parliamentary democracies than presidental democracies. Presently about 117 nations have democratic systems of some sort, and only about fif- teen have presidential systems. ‘The government of the United States is the world’s oldest 233, 234 The Legislative Process : ti ad a number of Latin American oy, aration of powers, and 3 and Mexico, have systems fash; Fae eee ascd ni, Colombia, Costa 4 and France also have presidenygy™% including Argentina, ne US. model.” Finlanc cts. Switzerland jg hang closely on in se ta alhoeghche differ from the US. 53 eer eee ee scron Feice tong) i H ies, it has a 2 houses of th classify. Unlike other democracies, it bis. © 1 ing of the two ho 1 na Cound! whos neers ae elected by ajo rahe seven as president of the Confeden. parliament. The joint meeting also picks one °° yearly from one council meme, ion fe d thereafter the position Pat ion of powers: Once ge” ton for one year, and there Switeerland also has separati lected, another in order of seniority. ‘dl in in office for seven-year terms, and the Patlia the members of the Federal ean “alo. a hen the parliament rejects a policy propose em. Also, : ; yd Rae Couneil the Counc has no power to dissolve parliament and holq aa unscheduled parliamentary election. — ie all have parliamentary sys ‘The numerous remaining established democraci it my, including Great Britain, the nations of the British Commonwealth the ie of Wes. ern Europe and Scandinavia, and such non-European countries as a anc Japan, ‘Most of the republics of the former Soviet Union are still working out their ney, mm and ith mnfident predictions about which forms of government, and it is too soon to make co! ipreay ones will become stable democracies and which forms of democratic government they wi adopt. At the century's end most appeared to be working toward versions of presidentia] democracy closer to the French than the U.S. model. ; Why, then, have some democracies, including the United States, deviated from the norm by basing their systems on the principle of separation of powers? ities Doctrine of Separation of Powers James Madison's statement, which opens this chapter, forcefully declares a view of gov- ernment and human rights held by almost all of the fifty-five men who drafted the Con: stitution of the United States in the summer of 1787, They believed that in constructing a government that is truly just and free, people must steer between two very different but equally great dangers. On the one hand, government, with its great legal powers and physical force, is a permanent threat to people's liberties, and the people must always be $ inherent tendency to tyranny. On the other hand, the law becoming tyrannical. But how? Te anbwer Madison and the other framers believed, i to vest each of the govett men’s tm e be ic powers ua separate and independent branch of government. Wher ‘¢ branches act in concert, rent can do what i leg : it must, but no executive. leg a court will ever be able to use the whole Power of gdvernenent to work its Way ! ce ies 7 restraint Any concentration of powers in a single branch is tyrannical, no mt rer whether that agency is an elected and responsible ~ . ly or an inte sponsible hereditary monarch, Only true ‘Presentative assembly or the people against the aggressions of goverment of powers protects the liberties of The Legislative Process 235 Separation of Powers in Presidential Democracies US. version of identi: - The S. version of Presidential democracy separates governmental powers by the fol Separation of Personnel ‘The Constitution of the United States specifically prohibits any person from hold- ing office in more than one of the three branches of, eoreramient at tone, Article I, Sec- tion 6, declares that “no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” Thus, if the attorney general wishes to be a senator from New York, he or she must resign from the executive position, as Robert Kennedy did in 1964. Ifa senator from Texas wishes to be secretary of the trea- sury, he or she must resign the Senate seat, as Lloyd Bentsen did in 1993. If a representa- tive from New Mexico wishes to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he or she must resign the congressional seat, as Bill Richardson did in 1997. If the assistant attorney general wishes to become a justice of the Supreme Court, he or she must resign from the executive post, as Byron White did in 1961. If a justice of the Supreme Court wishes to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he or she must resign the seat on the bench, as Arthur Goldberg did in 1965. Checks and Balances The U.S. Constitution does not try to isolate the three branches of government from one another completely. Rather, each branch is given a number of checks with which it can keep the others in proper balance. Thus Congress is empowered to check the president by refusing to pass bills the president requests, withholding appropriations for executive and administrative agencies, denying approval of presidential appointments to other top executive posts, and even removing him or her from office by impeachment and conviction. Congress is empowered to check the Supreme Court by limiting its appellate jurisdiction and by withholding approval of the appointments of new judges. The president is empowered to check Congress by vetoing its acts and to check the Supreme Court by initially appointing its judges. The Supreme Court can check both Congress and the president by using its power of judicial review (see Chapter 14). Fusion of Powers in Parliamentary Democracies all parliamentary democratic systems is what some analysts call nis the concentration of all powers in the parliament, The powers are f which is the direct opposite of its counterpart in the presi- The essential principle of the fusion of powers, whicl fused by two devices, each o! dential democracies. Overlap of Personnel With rare exceptions, that everyone who holds a top executive ter 12) must be a member of the parliament. the constitutions of the parliamentary democracies require positiona minister or a subminister (see Chap- “Thus the top levels of the executive branch, 236 The Legislative Process . : committees of the pari, such as the cabinet and the ministry, are in effect Pi MENL thar Pre side over the executive agencies. Formal Supremacy of Parliament ‘The ministers’ authority to set the exeentive agencis in 2 paliamenrany s.. is granted to them by the parliament. Any time the parliament decides to remove ticular cabinet or ministry, it needs only to pass a vote of “no confidence” in i, yi! that happens, either the ministry must resign and be replaced by another Acceptabl. the parliamentary majority, or a general election must be held to elect a new parlian, Which may then reappoint the old ministry or replace it with a new one. In shor, 4. agreement and deadlock between the legislative and executive branches, which arg , common in presidential systems, cannot be tolerated ina parliamentary system and ny, be resolved by changing the membership and behavior of cither or both branches 5 agreement between them can be restored. bo nt, Crossing Boundaries Most political scientists today believe that the traditional three-way classification of gy, ernment powers is inadequate and misleading. They recognize that in all modern deo cratic systems no agency sticks exclusively to the job formally assigned to it. Levislai Parllamentary Democracy at Work. The opening session of a new German parliament. pect co neg sre oes = The Legislative Process 237 bodies often engage in executive activities (for example, their investigations of wrongdo- ingin government, schools, and labor unions). Court chen “tnake” laws (as in their inter- pretations of constitutions and laws). Executive and administrative agencies often make and interpret laws (for example, making administrative regulations, determining whether Persons have violated them, and imposing penalties on those who have). A few political scientists have attempted to preserve the traditional conception by calling the judicial activities and powers of executive agencies “quasi judicial” Most, however, have concluded that the adjectives legislative, executive, and judicial should be used only as convenient tags for identifying particular government agencies and do not consti- tute complete and accurate descriptions of what the agencies actually do. In this chapter, accordingly, we will focus on those agencies generally called degisla- tures, According to Nelson W. Polsby, legislatures can be distinguished from executives and courts by their special combination of six characteristics: Legislatures (1) are, like executives and courts, official government agencies, in the sense we discussed in Chapter 2; (2) are, like juries and appellate courts, multimembered; (3) are entities whose members, like some executives and judges, are directly elected by the citizens; (4) are entities whose members are formally equal that is, the vote of each legislator is counted the same as the vote of every other legislator); (5) arrive at their decisions by deliberating on alternatives; and (6) register decisions by counting the votes of their members. In examining the legislative process, we will deal with the principal activities of those bodies, but we will not be concemed with the question of whether or not their activities are truly legislative in the eighteenth-century sense of the term. For our pur- poses, any function performed by a body called a legislature is a legislative function, We will proceed from similar premises in subsequent chapters on the executive, administra- tive, and judicial processes. FUNCTIONS OF LEGISLATURES Statute Making ‘The first function of legislatures in modern democratic systems is making statutes. I use the term statute making rather than lawmaking because the former more accurately describes what legislatures actually do. Law means a rule of behavior that officially emanates from any authorized government agency, while a statute is a lav formally enacted by a legislature. Statutes constitute an important segment of any democratic system’s total body of law, but that body of law also includes such elements as common law and rules of equity made by the courts as well as the more significant executive and administrative decrees and regula- tions. Legislatures thus monopolize the making of statutes but not the making of laws, Constitution Making and Amending ‘The legislatures in most democratic systems have certain powers over the establishment and amendment of their national constitutions. Many constitutions are originally drawn up by legislatures, and every legislature is authorized to play some role in making formal oe Tn some sar, such as Great Britain and New Zealand, the 238 The Legislative Process i ‘ i authorized to amend the constitution, , Man pasioeal legilanre isthe sole oa ‘and France (and most American states), ,¢ lege ture normally proposes amendments, and the voters ratify or defeat those Proposal referendums, In still others, such as the United States, snes are Proposed jy te tional legi ratified by state legislatures or conventions. ™ Most democrot leganre have also added to their constitutions by enacting cern kinds of statutes. In the United States, for example, Congress has adopted statutes ei. : . ions, and the federal cours, ing the executive departments, the regulatory commissions, an Fats below ihe Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court is explicitly established by the Constitution.) Electoral Functions Most democratic legislatures play important roles in selecting some or all of the top ex, utives. The outstanding instances are the indirect “elections” of prime ministers by the legislatures of the parliamentary democracies. Those legislatures do not always directly cast ballots for various candidates for this office, of course. Yet, every time a legislaune votes on a motion of no confidence (see Chapter 12), it is, in effect, reclecting or defeating the incumbent prime minister: If the motion passes, the prime minister must resign; ifi, loses, the prime minister remains in office. Even in the presidential democracies the legislatures have some electoral powers, ‘The U.S. Constitution, for example, provides that if no candidate for president or vice President receives a majority of the votes in the Electoral College, the House of Repre sentatives will choose the president from among the top two or three candidates, and the Senate will choose the vice-president in a somewhat different way. No president or vice president has been selected by those procedures since 1824 (when no candidate won majority of the electoral votes, and the House chose John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford). Nevertheless, Congress retains its electoral powers against the day when they may be needed again. Financial Functions In every modern democracy. the legislature holds the basic “power of the purse” and determines the nature and amount of taxes and appropriations, Governments can legally Quasi-Executive Functions In addition to acting upon executive budgets, most ic legislatures also ™"*" some other: Kinds of executive Proposals, In most cera eg for example io national treaties are negotiated by the executives but must be approved by the legisla

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