India is a Republic and the head is the President in whom all the executive power vests and in whose name it is to be exercised. He is also the Supreme Commander of the armed forces. It has been held, however, that unlike the U.S. President, our President is only a nominal or constitutional head of the executive; he acts only with the aid and advice of the real political executive which is the Council of Ministers. The Ministers are collectively responsible to the popular House of Parliament i.e. the Lok Sabha. Thus, following the British pattern, the Constitution of India has basically adopted, both at the Union and State levels, the parliamentary system of government with ministerial responsibility to the popular House as against the U.S. system of the Presidential Government with separation of powers and a nearly irremovable President as the Chief Executive for a fixed term. In the U.S. system, the President chooses his team of ministers from among the citizens at large and the ministers are not members of the legislature while in the Parliamentary System, the Ministers are from Parliament and remain part of it and responsible to its House of the People. The Parliamentary System may be said to be laying greater stress on the concept of the responsibility of the executive while the Presidential system obviously promotes more the stability of the executive.
It would, however, be wrong to assert that we have adopted the British parliamentary system in toto. There are several fundamental differences and departures. To name a few; the U.K. Constitution is still largely unitary, while ours is largely federal. They are a monarchy with a hereditary King while we are a republic with an elected President, unlike the British we have a written constitution and our Parliament, therefore, is not sovereign and legislation passed by it is subject to judicial review. Our Constitution includes a charter of justiciable fundamental rights which are enforceable by the Courts not only against the executive but also against the legislature unlike the position in U.K.
There has been some debate on our country on the desirability or otherwise of moving over to the Presidential model. The founding fathers, however, preferred the parliamentary form because they had some experience of operating it and there were advantages in continuing established institutions. After a long struggle for responsible government and against arbitrary executive authority, they were naturally allergic to a fixed term irremovable executive. In a highly pluralistic society with India's size and diversity and with many pulls of various kinds, they believed that the parliamentary form was the most suited for accommodating a variety of interests and building a united India.
Discussing the problem of making a choice between the U.S. Presidential model and the British parliamentary model, both of which were democratic, Dr. Ambedkar had said in the Constituent Assemble:
"A democratic executive must satisfy two conditions –
(1) It must be a stable executive and
(2) It must be a responsible executive.
Unfortunately it has not been possible so far to devise a system which can ensure both in equal degree. You can have a system which can give you more stability but less responsibility or you can have a system which gives you more responsibility but less stability. The American and the Swiss systems give more stability but less responsibility. The British System on the other hand gives you more responsibility but less stability. The Draft Constitution in recommending the Parliamentary system of Executive has preferred more responsibility to more stability".
K.M. Munshi put the argument more candidly when he said:
"We must not forget a very important fact that during the last hundred years, Indian public life has largely drawn upon the traditions of British Constitutional law. Most of us have looked up to the British model as the best. For the last thirty year or forty years, some kind of responsibility has been introduced in the governance of this country. Our constitutional traditions have become parliamentary. After this experience, why should we go back upon the tradition that has been built for over a hundred years and buy a novel experience?"
It would, however, be wrong to assert that we have adopted the British parliamentary system in toto. There are several fundamental differences and departures. To name a few; the U.K. Constitution is still largely unitary, while ours is largely federal. They are a monarchy with a hereditary King while we are a republic with an elected President, unlike the British we have a written constitution and our Parliament, therefore, is not sovereign and legislation passed by it is subject to judicial review. Our Constitution includes a charter of justiciable fundamental rights which are enforceable by the Courts not only against the executive but also against the legislature unlike the position in U.K.
There has been some debate on our country on the desirability or otherwise of moving over to the Presidential model. The founding fathers, however, preferred the parliamentary form because they had some experience of operating it and there were advantages in continuing established institutions. After a long struggle for responsible government and against arbitrary executive authority, they were naturally allergic to a fixed term irremovable executive. In a highly pluralistic society with India's size and diversity and with many pulls of various kinds, they believed that the parliamentary form was the most suited for accommodating a variety of interests and building a united India.
Discussing the problem of making a choice between the U.S. Presidential model and the British parliamentary model, both of which were democratic, Dr. Ambedkar had said in the Constituent Assemble:
"A democratic executive must satisfy two conditions –
(1) It must be a stable executive and
(2) It must be a responsible executive.
Unfortunately it has not been possible so far to devise a system which can ensure both in equal degree. You can have a system which can give you more stability but less responsibility or you can have a system which gives you more responsibility but less stability. The American and the Swiss systems give more stability but less responsibility. The British System on the other hand gives you more responsibility but less stability. The Draft Constitution in recommending the Parliamentary system of Executive has preferred more responsibility to more stability".
K.M. Munshi put the argument more candidly when he said:
"We must not forget a very important fact that during the last hundred years, Indian public life has largely drawn upon the traditions of British Constitutional law. Most of us have looked up to the British model as the best. For the last thirty year or forty years, some kind of responsibility has been introduced in the governance of this country. Our constitutional traditions have become parliamentary. After this experience, why should we go back upon the tradition that has been built for over a hundred years and buy a novel experience?"
0 comments: