Governments usually have three branches. These being legislative, executive and judicial. The Legislative branch (in most political systems) is usually decided through an electoral process, like we have here in Pakistan. The executive and judicial are usually decided on the basis of merit.
A lot of countries have bicameral systems in place for governance, this is where there a two or three houses of parliament. These houses share the responsibilities of the three branches of government. Here in Pakistan, the government is divided into three branches, the National Assembly (Legislative), the Senate (Executive) and the Supreme Court (Judicial).
This system has it's obvious advantages, for example, it allows for the flow of greater ideas and provides a platform for the refinement of laws being passed. However it carries with it some serious cons. Firstly, the chances of gridlock are greatly increased. With the flow of great ideas come the serious arguments that come up in the law making process. An example of this is when the US Government shutdown early last year. This was because the legislative wanted to increase the government borrowing ceiling but this was rejected but the executive. No amount of talks between the two (through commissions) lead to a result acceptable to both. Thereby the government shutdown till the problem was not resolved.
Secondly, efficiency is not maximized when there exists a system of bicameral governance. Since there are more channels to go through, the final decision takes longer to pull through. Thereby with a longer procedure in place, laws take longer to pass, usually overshooting the time in which they were required in the most. In the light of the first point, the following example will clear how efficiency is compromised in bicameral governance. After the tragic attack on a Peshawar school, the government of Pakistan was immediately places under a huge amount of stress to "do something about it". The PMLN government hatched the idea of military courts. No two parties agreed on this idea, thus prolonging the process on this law being passed. Once the Assembly finally passed the law (with lots of opposition nonetheless) it took longer for it to pass through Pakistan's executive and finally judicial branches of government.
3 comments:
I totally agree with you that with a bicameral system, it takes longer to pass a legislation. However, the military courts are established under the 21st ammendment and the bill for this ammendent was not even properly debated upon.
Moreover the executive and the judiciary has no role to play in the passing of the legislation. The bill only has to be passed by the two houses. However, it can be challenged in the courts in certain cases.
Though, in a bicameral system, the laws are passed slowly and things get stubborn, but this system could prove to be beneficial too.eg. In the unicameral system, if a bill or law is being passed which supports a certain type of group and is against others, no one is there to oppose it beacuse the majority of people in the lower house will be supportting it. But if another house is present which has equal representation from all groups, they can oppose the bill or could amend it in such a way that it suits everyone and no chaos can arise due to it. So like every other thing, this system has its pros and cons too.
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