Indian Polity
15-Point Reforms Charter for Parliament
- 01 Nov 2019
- 4 min read
Why in News?
For effective and better functioning of the Parliament and the State Legislatures, Vice President of India recently introduced a 15 point reform charter.
Key Points
He highlighted various problems that adversely impact the legislative institutions and suggested remedial measures for them.
Issued Charter
- Political Conscience: Call for a new political consciousness amongst legislators to review their roles and responsibilities.
- Quorum: Political parties must ensure attendance of at least 50% of their legislators throughout the proceedings of the Houses by adopting a roster system.
- This was needed in the backdrop of required Quorum (of 10% of the strength of the Houses), which if not met, leads to the adjournment of the House.
- Whip: Review of Whip system which hinders the freedom of expression of the legislators.
- This will allow a reasonable degree of dissent without impacting the stability of the government.
- Anti- Defection: Review of the Anti Defection Law to rectify the areas like incentivizing legislators to resort to actions that invite expulsion from the party besides providing for time-bound disposal of defection cases by the Presiding Officer.
- Department Related Standing Committees: Measures for effective functioning of Department Related Standing Committees like longer tenure (instead of the present one year), promoting specialization, etc were needed.
- Legislative Impact Assessment: A detailed framework for pre and post Legislative Impact Assessment was needed.
- Every legislative proposal must incorporate a detailed account of social, economic, environmental and administrative impact for wider awareness and subsequent legal assessment.
- Voting Preferences: Need for moving away from identity-based voting to that of development-oriented exercise of voting preferences. Role of caste, community, region, and religion in influencing the voting preferences needs to be minimized.
- Responsible Government and Opposition: Need for responsive governments positively acting on the concerns of the opposition and the need for responsible and constructive opposition while resorting to available parliamentary instruments.
- Simultaneous Polls: Building consensus on the proposal of simultaneous polls to allow unrestricted governance.
- Reservation of Women: Enacting for reservation of women in legislatures.
- Rules and Regulations: Making rules that automatically take action against erring members in case of interruptions and disruptions. Need for timely and effective action against legislators for non-ethical conduct.
- Transparency & Accountability: Regular publication of reports by the Secretariats of Legislatures on the attendance of Members and their participation in debates.
- Addressing the concern of a rising number of legislators with criminal records.
- Setting up of special courts for time-bound adjudication of criminal complaints against legislators.
- A minimum number of sittings for both the Houses of Parliament and State Legislatures per year need to be appropriately prescribed.
