3
4.
Other causes of failure are a tendency to work in secret, a lack of contact between Members and their electors, and low standing of Members.
5.
Conversely, successful legislatures are those which are restrained, which change only slowly, which have strong relationships between individual voters and the elected representatives, which are salient and which dispose of business speedily and efficiently. Such legislatures reconcile the short term demands of voters with the long term interests of their nation. Their members enjoy high standing being honest, hardworking good communicators and, more often than not, are highly educated.
6.
I have been struck by the high correlation between Bagehot's views of the roles of Parliaments and the expectations of voters, particularly in the Asian region, as expressed in various studies.
7.
Bagehot suggested that Legislatures should perform the following functions :-
a)
b)
c)
a)
e)
-
the expressive function whereby the mind of the people is spoken;
the teaching function - whereby the people are taught what they do not know and society is altered for the better;
the formative function, whereby the executive is informed of what is wrong and of individual grievances;
the Legislative function including scrutiny of Bills and budgets and;
the elective function whereby a Government is maintained in power.
(However, the last of the above functions does not seem essential. There are successful Legislatures which do not perform it.)
8.
Surveys in Asia suggest that voters particularly expect their elected representatives to perform the first three of the above functions and in that order of priority. These functions are perfectly compatible with the constitutional arrangements in the Basic Law.
9.
The Basic Law also neatly provides the means for reconciling the tensions between those who argue that elected representatives are voted into office in order to exercise their judgement in the long term interest of the nation and those who argue that the elected representatives vote should be determined by the instructions of his constituents. In Washington, I
Page 30Page 31