Parliamentary system

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Map of different governmental systems
Constitutional monarchies in which authority is vested in a parliament are denoted in red. Parliamentary republics where parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state are denoted in orange. Parliamentary republics where the role of the head of government and head of state are combined are denoted in turquoise.

A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined.

Parliamentary systems -when compared to presidential systems- are characterized by having a different type of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, leading to a different set of checks and balances. Parliamentary systems usually have a clear differentiation between the head of government and the head of state, with the head of government being the prime minister or premier, and the head of state often being a figurehead, usually either a president (elected either popularly or by the parliament, a Parliamentary republic) or a hereditary monarch (or representative thereof such as a Governor-General), often seen in a constitutional monarchy.^{[citation needed]}

Background

Parliamentarianism may also be for governance in local governments. An example is the city of Oslo, which has an executive council (Byråd) as a part of the parliamentary system..

Students of democracy such as Arend Lijphart divide parliamentary democracies into two different systems, the Westminster and Consensus systems (See Lijphart 1999 for this section).^{[citation needed]}

The Palace of Westminster in London, United Kingdom. The Westminster system originates from the British Houses of Parliament.

• The Westminster system is usually found in Commonwealth of Nations countries, although it is not universal within nor exclusive to Commonwealth countries. These parliaments tend to have a more adversarial style of debate and the plenary session of parliament is more important than committees. Some parliaments in this model are elected using a plurality voting system (first past the post), such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and India, while others use proportional representation, such as Ireland and New Zealand. The Australian House of Representatives is elected using instant-runoff voting while the Senate is elected using proportional representation through single transferable vote. Regarldess of which system is used, the voting systems tend to allow the voter to vote for a named candidate rather than a closed list.

• Western European parliamentary model (e.g., Spain, Germany) tend to have a more consensual debating system, and usually have semi-cyclical debating chambers. Consensus systems have more of a tendency to use proportional representation with open party lists than the Westminster Model legislatures. The committees of these Parliaments tend to be more important than the plenary chamber. A specific example is sometimes called the West German Model since its earliest exemplar in its final form was in the Bundestag of West Germany (which became the Bundestag of Germany upon the absorption of the GDR by the FRG). Unlike in Germany however, some West European countries' parliaments (e.g., the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland) implement the principle of dualism as a form of separation of powers. In countries using this system, Members of Parliament have to resign their place in Parliament upon being appointed (or elected) minister. However, ministers in those countries usually actively participate in parliamentary debates - the main difference being their inability to vote. Switzerland is considered one the purest examples of a consensus system.^{[citation needed]}

There also exists a Hybrid Model, the semi-presidential system, drawing on both presidential systems and parliamentary systems, for example the French Fifth Republic.

Implementations of the parliamentary system can also differ on whether the government needs the explicit approval of the parliament to form, rather than just the absence of its disapproval, and under what conditions (if any) the government has the right to dissolve the parliament, like Jamaica and many others.^{[citation needed]}

A Parliamentary system may consist of two styles of Chambers of Parliament one with two chambers (or houses): an elected lower house, and an upper house or Senate which may be appointed or elected by a different mechanism from the lower house. This style of two houses is called bicameral system. Legislatures with only one house are known as unicameral system.^{[citation needed]}

One of the commonly attributed advantages to parliamentary systems is that it's faster and easier to pass legislation.^[1] This is because the executive branch is dependent upon the direct or indirect support of the legislative branch and often includes members of the legislature. Thus, this would amount to the executive (as the majority party or coalition of parties in the legislature) possessing more votes in order to pass legislation. In a presidential system, the executive is often chosen independently from the legislature. If the executive and legislature in such a system include members entirely or predominantly from different political parties, then stalemate can occur. Former US President Bill Clinton often faced problems in this regard, since the Republicans controlled Congress for much of his tenure. Accordingly, the executive within a presidential system might not be able to properly implement his or her platform/manifesto. Evidently, an executive in any system (be it parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential) is chiefly voted into office on the basis of his or her party's platform/manifesto. It could be said then that the will of the people is more easily instituted within a parliamentary system.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to quicker legislative action, Parliamentarianism has attractive features for nations that are ethnically, racially, or ideologically divided. In a unipersonal presidential system, all executive power is concentrated in the president. In a parliamentary system, with a collegial executive, power is more divided. In the 1989 Lebanese Taif Agreement, in order to give Muslims greater political power, Lebanon moved from a semi-presidential system with a strong president to a system more structurally similar to classical parliamentarianism. Iraq similarly disdained a presidential system out of fears that such a system would be tantamount to Shiite domination; Afghanistan's minorities refused to go along with a presidency as strong as the Pashtuns desired.^{[citation needed]}

It can also be argued that power is more evenly spread out in the power structure of parliamentarianism. The prime minister seldom tends to have as high importance as a ruling president, and there tends to be a higher focus on voting for a party and its political ideas than voting for an actual person.^{[citation needed]}

In The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot praised parliamentarianism for producing serious debates, for allowing the change in power without an election, and for allowing elections at any time. Bagehot considered the four-year election rule of the United States to be unnatural.^{[citation needed]}

There is also a body of scholarship, associated with Juan Linz, Fred Riggs, Bruce Ackerman, and Robert Dahl that claims that parliamentarianism is less prone to authoritarian collapse. These scholars point out that since World War II, two-thirds of Third World countries establishing parliamentary governments successfully made the transition to democracy. By contrast, no Third World presidential system successfully made the transition to democracy without experiencing coups and other constitutional breakdowns.^{[citation needed]}

A recent World Bank study found that parliamentary systems are associated with lower corruption.^[2]

Criticisms of parliamentarianism

King Charles I of England opposed parliamentarism for interfering with the divine right of kings. He was beheaded following the English Civil War between Parliamentarians and Royalists.

Weimar Germany's parliament was set ablaze in 1933 to the advantage of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, a fervent critic of parliamentarianism.

One of the main criticisms of many parliamentary systems is that the head of government is in almost all cases not directly elected. In a presidential system, the president is usually chosen directly by the electorate, or by a set of electors directly chosen by the people, separate from the legislature (see Electoral college). However, in a parliamentary system the prime minister is elected by the legislature, often under the strong influence of the party leadership. Thus, a party's candidate for the head of government is usually known before the election, possibly making the election as much about the person as the party behind him or her.^{[citation needed]}

Some constituencies may have a popular local candidate under an unpopular leader (or the reverse), forcing a difficult choice on the electorate. Mixed member proportional representation (where voters cast two ballots) can make this choice easier.^{[citation needed]}

Although Walter Bagehot praised parliamentarianism for allowing an election to take place at any time, the lack of a definite election calendar can be abused. In some systems, such as the British, a ruling party can schedule elections when it feels that it is likely to do well, and so avoid elections at times of unpopularity. Thus, by wise timing of elections, in a parliamentary system a party can extend its rule for longer than is feasible in a functioning presidential system. This problem can be alleviated somewhat by setting fixed dates for parliamentary elections, as is the case in several of Australia's state parliaments. In other systems, such as the Dutch and the Belgian, the ruling party or coalition has some flexibility in determining the election date. Conversely, flexibility in the timing of parliamentary elections avoids having periods of legislative gridlock that can occur in a fixed period presidential system.^{[citation needed]}

Critics of the westminster parliamentary system point out that people with significant popular support in the community are prevented from becoming prime minister if they cannot get elected to parliament since there is no option to "run for prime minister" like one can run for president under a presidential system. Additionally, prime ministers may lose their positions solely because they lose their seats in parliament, even though they may still be popular nationally. Supporters of parliamentarianism can respond by saying that as members of parliament, prime ministers are elected firstly to represent their electoral constituents and if they lose their support then consequently they are no longer entitled to be prime minister. In parliamentary systems, the role of the statesman who represents the country as a whole goes to the separate position of head of state, which is generally non-executive and non-partisan. Promising politicians in parliamentary systems likewise are normally preselected for safe seats - ones that are unlikely to be lost at the next election - which allows them to focus instead on their political career.^{[citation needed]}

In history, King Charles I of England famously rejected parliamentarianism during the 17th Century, because he saw it as interfering with the "Divine Right of Kings to rule.^[3] He was tried and beheaded for treason by supporters of the parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Cromwell in turn became a dictator and the parliament restored constitutional monarchy in the 1660s. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler included several critiques of parliamentarianism in his book Mein Kampf, writing that the Nazi movement was "anti-parliamentarian" because it rejects "a principle of majority rule in which the leader is degraded to the level of mere executant of other people's wills and opinion" and further that "By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature" The war time British parliamentarian Winston Churchill on the other hand offered his system this mock criticism: "democracy is the worst system of government except for the alternatives".^[4]

Countries with a parliamentary system of government

The New South Wales Parliament is Australia's oldest parliament. First elections were held in 1843.

Sansad Bhavan, parliament building of India.

Parliament of New Zealand.

National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.

Statue of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa in Parliament Square, London.

National Parliament of East Timor.

Council of Representatives of Iraq.

Unicameral system

This table shows countries with parliament consisting of a single house.

Bicameral system

This table shows organisations and countries with parliament consisting of two houses.

See also

• Legal reform
• Parliamentary leader
• Rule of law
• Rule according to higher law

References