23 October 2023 12:02 am Views - 430
Parliament is the highest legislative body in a country. In other words, it makes the laws of the land. It has three functions; representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the work of government.
The role of parliamentarians is therefore extremely important, as they embody the sovereignty of the people. They are looked upon as examples for the younger generation to follow and need to be seen as paragons of virtue. Some even feel they should embody all that is good in our society.
According to the ‘Parliamentary Union’ - worldwide, parliamentarians are struggling to meet the ever growing expectations of citizens.
A survey conducted for the Global Parliamentary Report indicates parliamentarians consider law-making to be their most important role (52.3% of respondents), followed by holding government to account (17.2%) and solving constituents’ problems (12.5%).
However, when asked what they think citizens see as their most important role, the story is very different. Parliamentarians believe, that in the eyes of the citizen, solving citizens’ problems is the parliamentarian’s most important role (36.4%), followed by law-making (20.3%), holding government to account (16.2%) and promoting the interests and economy of their constituency (13.1%).
Our present parliament comprises 225 members known as Members of Parliament (MPs). Its members are elected by proportional representation for five-year terms. However, we also have an executive president who has the power to summon, suspend, prorogue, or terminate a legislative session and to dissolve the Parliament.
By some cruel quirk of fate, in our country something seems to have gone awry as per our MPs.
Our legislators cannot by any stretch of imagination, be said to have lived up to the spirit of parliamentarism or to the expectations of the electorate. Leave aside solving citizens problems, our parliamentarians are more often than not, the cause of most of the problems facing our country.
The best example of the difference between expectancy and reality is our ever increasing cost of living and stagnant wages over the past three years. While wages have remained frozen during this period, the cost of having two basic meals a day is beyond the reach of over a quarter of the population.
Studies by UNICEF reveal as at November 2022 an estimated 6.2 million people (28 per cent of the total population in the country) are moderately acute food insecure, while 66,000 people are severely acute food insecure.
In September 2023 the media reported, gun violence had taken around 50 lives in our country so far this year and this number keeps rising by the day. The report added that one wondered whether Colombo and some other urban centres will soon be bracketed with Tijuana (in Mexico), which has come to be dubbed the ‘murder capital’ of the world.
But then this should hardly come as a surprise, as our parliamentarians themselves have been charged with robbing the state coffers blind. Equally bad, our parliamentarians use of unparliamentary language has become the norm during parliamentary debates.
Violence has also erupted on the well of the House itself. Just over a year ago, we witnessed ugly scenes in the ‘well’ where a group of parliamentarians attacked no lesser person than the Speaker of the House itself and caused damage to parliamentary property.
To date, no action was taken against the MPs, some of whom are now ministers!
In that particular shameful incident, parliamentarians attempted to assault and throw chill powder on the Speaker. The Speaker had to be rescued by Sergeant-at-Arms.
However, one of the more shameful acts in parliament was witnessed two days ago when a female parliamentarian complained to the Speaker that she was physically assaulted by a male member in the lobby of parliament. Videos of the incident are still doing the rounds in the media.
Is this the type of example we want to set our children.
The recent suspension of a particular Member of Parliament who attempted to steal the Speaker’s Mace is a good beginning, but an MP who was caught attempting to smuggle gold into the country has escaped with a slap on the wrist.
Another bad example for the next generation.