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.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.

 

 

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.

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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.

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 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.

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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

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 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

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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

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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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