This week speaker Rebecca Kadaga called on government to
respect parliament following what she thought was criticism of her work by
Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.
She took exception to Mbabazi’s claims that opposition
members were visiting her privately in her chambers and the suggestion that
they maybe influencing her work.
Kadaga argued that she was a speaker of the house and not
only of the NRM, in which she is a senior member and of which Mbabazi is the
Secretary General and she is supposed to be neutral in her dealings and not
lean towards her parent party positions.
This incident raises interesting questions about the
separation of powers between parliament and the executive and revives the
debate of whether the speaker of the house should belong to any party or even
be a serving MP.
The UK, with the world’s oldest parliamentary system, has a
speaker who is an elected MP and retains his seat in the constituency while
severing all ties with his party.
The speakers position started as an agent of the King or
crown but evolved over the last 500 years into the non-partisan position that
it is today.
One of the key moments in this evolution was when King
Charles I in 1642 stormed the house of commons with an armed force to arrest
five MPs who he accused of treason. The speaker of the day refused to give them
up arguing that he works at the behest of parliament and not the King.
In referring to best practice we largely cut-and-paste this
formula into our constitution.
However the writing into law is one thing and the actual
practice is another.
In the UK centuries of practice has created a tradition not
all of which is written down but is understood and appreciated currently.
Our parliamentary procedure is less than 20 years old, too
short at time to create enduring tradition.
The current situation therefore is a useful one. It may
cause some discomfort on both sides but its resolution will only serve to improve
our democratic practice.
The two options are to retain the status quo and muddle
towards the ideal following many tests of speaker’s neutrality or write it into
the law that the speaker once elected relinquishes elective office and any
affiliations he or she may have to the mother party thus allowing him a
semblance of independence.
The principle of separation of powers is an important pillar
of any democracy and an ideal we should be actively working towards.
The current spurt between the speaker and the prime minister
shows how difficult it is to maintain this separation’s integrity and we can
expect that more friction will be witnessed in the future.
Of course opposition to a totally independent speaker would
come not only from the party with the majority in the house but even from a
seating speaker.
The majority party which invariably calls the shots as to
who will be speaker want someone they can rally to their course whenever the
need arises. That is understandable. But any speaker, a politician in their own
right, may not relish the idea as this may distance them from the central
government and throw a spanner in future ambition.
The UK has settled on an interesting middle ground that
allows the speaker to eat his cake and keep it.
The UK speaker remains an elected MP during the duration of
their tenure in the chair. They however cut off all ties with their parent
party. When they seek reelection in the next election the speaker does not run
on any party ticket but is referred to as “The speaker seeking re-election” but
in addition there is an unwritten rule that the speaker is not opposed by a
candidate from a major party.
