DEEPENING DEMOCRACY
Citizens’ Parliaments and Parliaments for the Disabled to allow for different constituencies to articulate their visions and aspirations of how best government can serve their needs. Currently, SALS is engaging in
a process to review and develop a Public Participation Framework to integrate public participation into all core functions of Parliament so that Parliament becomes more responsive to the needs of the people. It also seeks to establish mechanisms and standards that will ensure broader and more meaningful participation by all the people. After an exhaustive process
that entailed revisiting the country’s constitutional landscape, reviewing current public participation processes in the SALS and holding public hearings throughout the country, the final product was to be launched by June 2013.
visits to even the remotest parts of the land to observe living conditions for themselves and gain a first-hand account of how public services are delivered to the people. Over the years, we have endeavoured to bring government even closer to the people through various instruments such as Taking Parliament to the People. This involves having a full
Assembly in a specific area of the country so that ordinary people can participate fully in serious deliberations with their public representatives at least once a year. These efforts are further
supported by the National Council of Provinces Outreach Week, wherein Members of Parliament and provincial Legislatures visit communities and listen to people’s inputs on how they experience government and also express themselves on how they would like to be governed. Furthermore, sectoral Parliaments
are a permanent feature in the South African Legislative Sector. Annually, different Legislatures host events such as Youth Parliaments, Women’s Parliaments, Senior
Developing the oversight mechanism In terms of the provisions of the constitution, Parliament and provincial Legislatures must maintain oversight of all organs of state, including those at provincial and local government levels. In the South African context,
oversight and accountability are constitutionally mandated functions of Legislatures empowering them to scrutinize and oversee executive action by any organ of state. Throughout the South African Legislatures, it is widely accepted that oversight defines proactive interaction by Legislatures with the executive and administrative organs. The express purpose is to encourage compliance with the constitutional obligation on them to ensure delivery on agreed objectives for the achievement of government priorities. We aim to ensure that deeply
embedded in all oversight activities is the need for accountability, transparency and representation. Many would agree that the SALS Oversight Model, which was launched in March 2012, is underpinned by the above three basic principles. During the development process
of the SALS Oversight Model, various experiences, expertise, practices, approaches, methodology and models in all Legislatures were taken into account. Therefore, the sector model is a collection of established practices of oversight in all South African Legislatures. In practise, we have identified parliamentary committees as the appropriate mechanism for Legislatures to oversee organs of state. In conducting such oversight, a committee is empowered through legislation to either request a briefing from any organ of state or visit the organ of state for fact-finding, depending on the purpose of the oversight. More importantly, committees
consider annual reports of organs of state as well as the Auditor-General’s reports. It becomes important therefore for committees to evaluate both the annual report in conjunction with the Auditor-General’s report to have a full appreciation of how the organ of state has performed in its duties.
A strong legislative arm Our mandate as Members of SALS is to build strong Legislatures and a strong legislative arm. And one of the key challenges we face as a sector is building effective institutions that are able to deliver on the vision of the South African constitution. Parliament and provincial Legislatures have clear constitutionally demarcated functional areas. Though these institutions are independent they are very much interrelated in the manner in which they collaborate to achieve broad sector objectives. The sector collaboration
approach adopted by the Speakers’ Forum of South Africa through a memorandum of understanding and the sector policy is clearly depicted in the continued collaboration of all South African Legislatures. This also informs the commitment of South African Legislatures to work even more closely together in the interests of strengthening the SALS and Legislatures.
SALS has made significant strides
in the co-ordination and alignment of sector programmes through project management, research and benchmarking, innovation, communication, secretariat and knowledge management services. Significantly, the sector approach enables us to co-ordinate, facilitate and monitor the implementation of joint sector programmes.
Recent sector highlights In the quest to build strong and effective legislatures, SALS has developed a number of sector strategic frameworks, models and guidelines, specifically in the areas of sector oversight, human resource development, gender and disability mainstreaming, petitions and performance management. In the recent past, the successful introductory sector training programme for Members of Parliament and provincial Legislatures culminated in a graduation ceremony in November 2011 where Members who completed and were assessed for the first phase of the programme were honoured. Phase two of the programme has
recently been concluded and about 240 Members of Parliament and provincial Legislatures successfully completed a Graduate Certificate in Governance and Leadership course. They were awarded their certificates at a graduation ceremony hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Finally, our work as South
African Parliamentarians is strongly influenced by the people’s needs and aspirations. We aim to serve the South African nation as best we can to realize one of the basic tenets of the Freedom Charter: “The People Shall Govern”. Our work is guided by the
overriding pursuit of providing a better life for all our people. We remain steadfast in our belief that Legislatures are the guardians of democracy and are institutions that must shape and give meaning to democracy.
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One - South Africa | 53
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