24
Twenty-fifth Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
have a Civil Service that refused to accept change. He did not know if delegates had found any difficulty in transmitting to a conservative civil servant the fact that a country had become socialist. Civil servants regarded politicians as people who were only briefly office.
When people were dissatisfied they blamed the politicians, but should the civil servants who advised them and had a part in decision making also be blamed; and, too, should civil servants be members of parties?
Theory was one thing-it was the factual position that was crucial, said a delegate from Trinidad and Tobago. Westminster had been his country's political model, but because of the plural nature of the electorate, the demographic distribution of the multiracial population, and the racial pattern of voting, the result had been a Government with an apparently endless tenure of office, which was no longer susceptible to the feelings of the people's representatives in the House. In effect, Parliament had been turned on its head and the Government controlled Parliament, instead of Parliament controlling the Government. Also, the Civil Service had become inefficient and terrified,
His point was that the Westminster system could be totally irrelevant in other countries and that they must have the courage to struggle for a political system indigenous to their own society if democracy were to survive there.
Ministers in the United Kingdom were so overworked that they had no time to come together and work as a team in Cabinet, said a United Kingdom delegate. He wondered whether the party and the whip systems had been overdone, and suggested there was a danger that members, in order to stay on what had now become an extremely large payroll, might not think independently for themselves.
He had had some experience with the European Parliament, which was scrutinising legislation at a much earlier stage than Westminster was, but this had its dangers in that a paper circulated for discussion only might get into the hands of the press and there be made to appear as law. In that Parliament too, he had noticed a tendency to insist upon rights, but it should be remembered that each right carried its responsibility and duty.
In India, citizens had a new control through being able to question in the courts the decisions of the Civil Service, the Executive, or a Minister.
The increase in the powers of the State meant that the role of Parliament, and its control over the processes of government, were declining. Power had been concentrated in the hands of the Government, and, within the Goverment, in the hands of the Prime Minister. Unless parliamentarians had some degree of independence, parliamentary control would become a fiction.
The Civil Service had to be independent and permanent, with civil servants being neither yes-men nor people who tried to defeat or delay the implementation of policies. They should be attuned to modern trends, and committed to the Constitution and to the principle of socio-economic justice. Because some civil servants were dedicated to rules and regulations, governments committed to change would often use specialised advisers whose advice on particular matters would enable political will to be put into effect.
They had a coconut type of Westminster democracy on their little island, said a delegate from the Cook Islands. About two-thirds of all working people in the Cooks were in the Civil Service. Therefore, a politician with the support of the Civil Service could win an election.
At future conferences he hoped they could discuss methods of educating MPs on their roles and responsibilities. He had been made a Minister during his first term of office and was now convinced he was not sufficiently knowledgeable for the job. The danger for new and developing nations was that when parliamentarians did not understand their proper role the Government could become autocratic or ineffective and leave the Civil Service to run the country. Much money was spent on complicated aid programmes; too little was devoted to helping politicians in countries like his to understand their roles better.
Although there was proportional representation in the Senate or upper House, he did not think it would work in the big electorates of 70,000 that elected the lower House, said an Australian delegate. It worked in Tasmania, as its delegate had explained, because that was a small electorate.
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