Submitted by Farouk Cassim
Parliament is where the grand inquest of the nation takes place. It is meant to be a deliberative assembly where issues are debated in the public glare. Its business is to make laws proactively and sometimes retroactively but also to take the issues of the moment simultaneously with everything else and certainly not to leave these for radio talk shows and the media as is happening at present. When a Parliament stifles free debate and prevents hard questions being put to ministers, it serves the interest of the governing party, not of the people of the country awaiting delivery. The questions of the people should and must be addressed frequently and openly in parliament - not in the streets and the media.
The South African Parliament is a sausage machine that churns out legislation. It is not the GRAND INQUISITION OF THE NATION.
If any institution exists in the name of the people, for the welfare of the people, by right of the people, then that institution is Parliament. Nelson Mandela stated, during his treason trial, that the ‘will of the people is the basis of the authority of government’. Today it is the will of government that is once again the authority; and it is the interest of governing party rather than that of the people that prevails in Parliament. If we in this nation strengthen every institution of democracy but leave Parliament, the very mother of democracy, free to be dragged which ever way the government wants to go, there will be no democracy and no unity, only autocracy and hostility.
The time has come to reform our electoral system, and most importantly, the time has come to reform our Parliament so that it becomes the grand inquisition of the people as it ought to be.
Unfortunately, the South African Parliament is a most malleable instrument. Its members are made to sing as though in a chorus or orchestra under the watchful eye of the conductor. Parliamentarians are not free souls and by that account neither is South Africa. The electoral system has to be changed so that accountability is to the people. Right now, as I am writing this, the majority party is worrying about who is going to be jumping ship. If MPs were treated as they deserve to be with the right to do what their consciences dictated, would any satisfied and fulfilled MP contemplate such action? It says volumes for what is going on. The atmosphere in there has to be very toxic for a bunch of people to want to go into an uncertain future.
I want to ask in the strongest possible manner that this message about reforming Parliament should get into every network so that collectively we can work to reform Parliament before it is too late. Another opportunity like the present one may never come again. That very day when Parliament starts working in the interest of the people, the quality of health, housing, welfare, education and security will improve dramatically and simultaneously. While Parliament only churns out laws and fails to be the grand inquest of the nation, debates will take place elsewhere and government will never be properly accountabile.
Parliament cannot be a lapdog. It has to be a watchdog. We, the people have failed Parliament and so Parliament in turn is failing us.
