In spite of the many practical merits of the system some objections have been urged against it. It has been argued that Parliamentary system violates the theory of Separation of Powers and, accordingly, it cannot commend itself.
Combination of executive and legislative functions in the same set of individuals leads to tyranny. Sidgwick, while admitting the undeniable gain of harmony between these two chief organs of government, maintains that it is “to be purchased by serious drawbacks.”
Ministers, he says, are liable to be distracted from their executive duties by the work of preparing legislative measures and carrying them through parliament while parliament is tempted away from legislative problems by interesting questions of current administration in which, especially in foreign affairs, it is liable to interfere to an excessive extent.”
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The advantages of the division of government into different departments are, thus, “lost in the fusion or confusion of legislative and executive functions.” This criticism, however, does not seem to be valid.
Practical experience tells us that collaboration between the executive and legislative powers is essential for the well-being of the States. These departments cannot be divided into water-tight compartments.
The theory of the Separation of Powers, in its traditional and consequently rigid form, is inconceivable and inoperative. While the same men may be at once members of the legislature and the executive, their functions in the two roles are distinct.
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It is further pointed out that the Parliamentary system is unstable. The government has no fixed life. It remains in office only so long as it can retain parliamentary majority which is subject to the vagaries of the representatives, particularly “if dominant majority in the representative chamber is either small or wanting in cohesion; and in the latter case it is also liable to be upset by a new combination of parties in the chamber aided perhaps by personal intrigues if the opportunity for the combination is skillfully chosen so that the newly-formed majority is not reversed on an appeal to the country.”
The uncertainty in the tenure of office, the critics maintain, provides no incentive to the party in power to adopt a farsighted and consistent policy. Nor does it venture to embark upon durable projects. A new Ministry which assumes office is sure to reverse the policy of the defeated Ministry, for it comes in with its own definite policy and programme.
It may, however, be said that much of the above criticism is true only in countries with multiple political parties where the lease of life of the cabinet is short and precarious. Countries, like Great Britain, having dual party system in practice, do not demonstrate such a state of affairs as dual party system is really the true basis of parliamentary democracy.
It is sometimes deplored that the Cabinet system divides the country into two antagonistic sets of men, those who strive their utmost to get things done and those who do their utmost to obstruct.
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The Oppositions under the Cabinet government must oppose tooth and nail all measures sponsored by the government, irrespective of their practical utility. Sometimes governmental policy is subjected to such a scathing criticism, that it proves detrimental to national solidarity and prestige.
When Opposition indiscriminately opposes what the government may say or propose, it retards the progress of the country and it, also, amounts to national wastage, both of money and time.
The antagonism between the parties is not confined to the legislature alone. They keep the country in a spirit of commotion and turmoil. As Bryce puts it, “the system intensifies the spirit of party and keeps it always on the boil.
Even if there are no important issues of policy before the nation there are always the offices to be fought for. One party holds them, the other desires them, and the conflict is unending, for immediately after a defeat the beaten party begins its campaign to dislodge the victors. It is like the incessant battle described as going on in the blood vessels between the red corpuscles and the invading microbes.”
But the fact is otherwise. The essential feature of Parliamentary democracy is a certain degree of moderation among the political parties, or what may be described as political forbearance. The minority agrees that the majority should govern and the majority agrees that the minority must criticise.
The Opposition is the prospective government and it understands and observes the rules of the game, as the majority does. The government so arranges the parliamentary programme as to give due opportunity to the Opposition to discuss and criticise its actions. The government even becomes wiser by that criticism and arrives at a compromise.
This is the essence of discussion and Parliamentary system succeeds par excellence in this respect. The situation of ruthless opposition prevails only when extremist and anti-democratic forces gain a substantial membership in the legislature which they proceed to terrorise and ridicule. But this is not the way of Parliamentary system.
“Whatever be the form of government,” says Guerin, “a regime is democratic when the will to social cooperation of its members is stronger and more spontaneous than its anarchical impulses.”
Parliamentary system recognises and welcomes differences and it provides the machinery for their expression. But these differences must not go so far as to make the work of government impossible. If such things are allowed to happen, as they do in some of the states India, it is the end of parliamentary democracy.
Again, Cabinet system is said to be inefficient because it is a government by amateurs. The headship of different departments of government is entrusted to persons who may not be familiar even with the rudiments of administration “A youth must pass,” as quoted earlier, “an examination in Arithmetic before he can hold a second class clerkship in the Treasury; but a Chancellor of the Exchequer may be a middle-aged man of the world who has forgotten what little he ever learnt about figures at Eton or Oxford, and is innocently anxious to know the meaning of those little first dots when confronted with Treasury accounts worked out in decimals.”
Disraeli, while forming a Ministry, offered the Board of Trade to a man who wanted instead the Local Government Board. “It does not matter,” said Disraeli, “I suppose you know as much about trade as the first Lord of the Admiralty knows about ships.”
Dr. Baldev Prakash was the Finance Minister in the Punjab Government, but with everything to learn about public finance; for the whole of his life Dr. Prakash had belonged to the medical profession.
The Prime Minister is not concerned in the choice of Ministers with their aptitudes and knowledge of the departments they have to preside over. His choice is seriously limited by political considerations, the foremost of which is the preservation of a stable parliamentary majority.
Hence, the amateur who obtains office is not always a gifted amateur. “Weak men, incompetents, are sometimes appointed to office or to inappropriate departments, out of such consideration of popularity, sometimes gained or faded a decade or more ago, or through the personal esteem or friendship of the Prime Minister.”
And once in office, the major part of their time is devoted to Parliament and cabinet meetings, social and other political activities and in nursing their constituencies. Nor does the brief and precarious tenure of their office leave any stimulus for them to learn the departmental technicalities. The result is, as the critics say, that Cabinet government is a government by inefficient who are mere tools in the hands of their permanent civil servants.
But this is not a correct appreciation of the Parliamentary system. Its essence is the responsibility of Ministers to the legislature. It is, no doubt, preferable to appoint a Minister who is well informed about the working of the department over which he presides. But it does not mean that he should be an expert.
The business of the Minister is not to do the work of the department. He is only to see that it works properly and consistently with the declared policy of the government. In fact, there are many advantages if the head of the department is an amateur.
A layman sees the department as a whole and his appraisal of the problem requiring solution is entirely different from that of an expert. “The cabinet”, according to Ramsay MacDonald, “is the bridge linking up the people with the expert, joining principle to practice. Its function is to transform the message sent along sensory nerves. It does not keep the departments going; it keeps them going in a certain direction.”
Another serious difficulty of the Parliamentary system is the ever-growing size of the cabinet in every country. Cabinets have grown everywhere too large for prompt and effective discussion and decision.
The huge amount of work to be done by the Cabinet and the tremendous burden on each Minister departmentally, parliamentary, electorally, and socially leaves very little margin of time for serious thought on any subject beyond the immediate task.
Then, participation in international conferences imposes on several Ministers, particularly on the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the Finance Minister, rather long occasional absences from current duties of administration at home. All taken together, the period of office of Ministers, as Herman Finer observes, is a period of practical work, not of reconsideration and survey.
The obvious result is, as the critics point out, a deep and continued reliance on the administrative services. Bureaucracy under the circumstances, according to Ramsay Muir, “thrives under the cloak of ministerial responsibility.”
Whatever be the justification of criticism, there is no denying the fact that the necessity of reducing the size of the cabinet is being felt in every country and in Britain it was reduced in 1947 to sixteen members only, and so was the size of Churchill’s Cabinet in 1951.
Anthony Eden continued the practice when he formed his government in May 1955 and Macmillan followed Eden after the latter’s resignation. It is now the usual norm in Britain and India, too, has followed more or less the same pattern.
Amery has suggested that no cabinet should exceed six or seven ministers. But this is not a practical number considering vast expansion in the activities of the State and other political compulsions to a parliamentary system of government.
Parliamentary system, its critics maintain, has degenerated into a party government in which political power is monopolised by the majority party. So long as parliamentary majority is assured, it assumes dictatorial powers.
The minority party is completely left out of active participation in the government and the nation is deprived of the talented persons who might be belonging to the minority party. Public opinion has no sweep over the policies of the government.
The critics, thus, very often allege that Great Britain practices a form of “plebiscitary democracy” in which people vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the record of the government in general but are deprived of any share in the “formulation of the individual policies.”
The charge of dictatorship of the Cabinet is not quite baseless. But there is a redeeming feature too. Lowell correctly says, “if the parliamentary system has made the Cabinet of the day autocratic, it is an autocracy exerted with the utmost publicity under a constant fire of criticism.” Cabinet government provides its own safeguards and accountability to the electorate is the primary constitutional safeguard.
It is argued that the pressure and complexity of the affairs of a modem government have led to certain changes in the manner of operation of cabinet government. The cabinet has been regarded as the centre of governmental coordination and of policymaking, and as being collectively responsible for all decisions on major issues and approver of all other decisions.
But the seemingly great power of the cabinet and its control over all policy matters is qualified by three factors. The first is the existence of politically more powerful individuals within the cabinet who constitute a hierarchy of their own and try to overlord the cabinet and the various ministries and departments. The second is the development of a structure of cabinet committees.
These cabinet committees are the real decision-making bodies within the spheres assigned to them. And above all is the ascendancy of the Prime Minister to unprecedented heights. He no longer remains primus inter pares. He generally formulates the policy of the government and often takes decisions without consulting the whole cabinet.
Ramsay Muir has said that the dictatorship of cabinet in the last resort means the dictatorship of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister makes and unmakes the government, shuffles his pack as and when he likes, may advise dissolution of Parliament and being leader of the party may take disciplinary action against the members of his party who flout the party whip and do not toe the line of the Prime Minister.
But it must not be forgotten that the Prime Minister’s position is bound up with the party. His prestige, no doubt, is one of the elements that make for the success of the party. He is also responsible for party cohesion. But without his party the Prime Minister is nothing. Whatever he is and whatever he can claim to be is due to what the party has made him.
Once the party disowns him, he meets the fate of Ramsay MacDonald. Within the cabinet he cannot do that entire he wishes to do. He must listen to and respect the opinions of his colleagues. It is essential for the Prime Minister to retain the loyalties of his political friends who owe him a personal as well as party allegiance.
Laski explains, “The parliamentary system is conducted on the vital hypothesis that no man is indispensable; and its daily operation is a constant and salutary remainder to the Prime Minister that his fortune depends upon the recognition of this truth.”
Finally, Cabinet government is charged with lack of promptness in deciding and taking immediate action in times of national crisis or emergency. In emergency promptness and vigour of initiative are essential for success. But a cabinet consists of a large number of Ministers, which need many minds to be consulted.
A quick and decisive opinion cannot, accordingly, be secured. Moreover, a cabinet under the parliamentary system with its divided responsibility, open discussions, and shifting majorities can hardly be expected to take prompt, united and vigorous decisions.
These objections are also not borne by facts. World War II had fully demonstrated how cabinet government withstood the test of time. In India, too, there is cabinet government, both at the Centre and in the states. How successfully the Central and the state governments grappled with the refugee and other post-partition problems are now a matter of contemporary history.