AN INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENT SECRETARIAT: AN INSIGHT INTO THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE
AN INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENT SECRETARIAT: AN INSIGHT INTO THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE The rationale behind the independence of the Secretariat of the Legislature within a parliamentary system of government can hardly be over emphasised. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has been advocating for the need for the Separation of Powers and the independence of Parliament Secretariats for many years, so as to enable the Legislature to independently scrutinise the Executive and to ensure its accountability to the Legislature through various procedural devices. The Commonwealth Latimer House Principles, adopted at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in Abuja in 2003, laid out certain principles and guidelines in this regard. The Principles highlight the importance of the Separation of Powers between the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary to ensure effective governance. More recently, the CPA, recognising these imperatives, brought out its ‘Model Law for Independent Parliaments’ which calls for the establishment of independent Parliamentary Service Commissions for Commonwealth Legislatures. The Model Law emphasised that: “Many Parliaments, both large and small will not be able to rigorously scrutinise the Executive, ensure that all legislation passed is of the highest quality or provide with sufficient support to aid their constituents and communities. These weaknesses, frequently, if not solely, derive from Parliament’s ability to access adequate financial resources, to have independent oversight of the administration and governance of Parliament and to access impartial, secure and high-quality human resources. It is argued that the root cause of these failures stems from Parliament’s lack of independence from the Executive, who either wilfully or through sheer negligence, stifle the democratic process by failing to allow Parliaments the freedom and support they need to participate equally with other branches of the government (namely, the Judiciary and the Executive.)”1
The practices followed in India with regard to the independence of the Legislature’s Secretariat reflects the ideas and ideals in the Commonwealth Latimer House Principles, although the requisite legislation in this regard is yet to be enacted. It is not widely known even in India that the Secretariats of the two Houses of the Indian Parliament, and the officers and staff who work in them do not belong to the Executive arms of the government, but are independent of the government and owe their allegiance to the respective Presiding Officers of the two Houses, viz, the Chairman of Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Many people, even in India, who are not familiar with the functioning of the Parliament of India, often think that officers who work in the two Secretariats belong to the Indian Civil Service, although officers belonging to the Indian Civil Service are sometimes posted in the Secretariats purely on a deputation basis to provide specialised services like security and audits. For example, the top security officer of the Indian Parliament’s security team belongs to the Indian Police Service, while the Financial Adviser belongs to the Indian Audit and Accounts Service. They are, however, accountable to the two Presiding Officers. The two Secretariats are largely serviced by officers and staff belonging to its own services and are subject to remuneration on a par with their counterparts in the Indian Civil Service, in addition to parliamentary allowances. The Secretary-Generals of the two Houses has a salary and status equivalent to the Cabinet Secretary, who is the top civil servant of the country. There is a rationale as to why the Constitution of India has enshrined the independence of the Secretariats. This is precisely because Parliament, which ensures Executive accountability through various procedural devices including parliamentary questions and its Committees which are serviced by personnel belonging to the Parliament Secretariat, cannot be expected to be objective and neutral if they belong to the Executive branch
Dr Rup Narayan Das is a former Joint Secretary of the Lok Sabha Secretariat of the Parliament of India and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. He holds a Ph.D from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has written for a wide range of international publications including the Harvard Asia Quarterly, Global Asia, China Brief, China Report, International Studies, the Times Higher Education Supplement and many English language daily newspapers in India. Email: rndas_osd@yahoo.com. All views expressed in this article are personal.
408 | The Parliamentarian | 2021: Issue Four | 100 years of publishing
