CPC: Prioritise separation of powers
From the Commonwealth perspective, Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC), will debate and advance solutions to pertinent issues critical to the very question of human survival.
It is for this reason that one particular item in the agenda; that is separation-of-powers, should take priority. Separation-of-powers is the anti-dote to anarchy. It is thus the central thesis of the Commonwealth, which is socio-economic and political virtues.
God created the Earth, and made mankind in his image, instructing them to be fruitful, multiply and dominate other elements. These were God’s own ideals of the world. However, in the first country, the Garden of Eden, the first citizens, Adam and Eve, breached these original constitutional provisions by committing the original sin.
This threw the spanners into the works. Thomas Hobbes in 1651 asserted that in the absence of the state, man lives in a state of nature where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
The separation-of-powers concept came as a result of the pertinent search for an Ideal state. Aristotle, the Greek thinker, highlighted the need for a general assembly (Parliament). John Locke, English, emphasised liberty. Baron de Montesquieue, a French jurist, synthesised these thoughts into the separation-of-powers concept.
In this, there are three spheres of government - the Executive; the Legislature; and the Judiciary. Practically, the US, which appeared to be in a “state of nature”, after a six-year bitter war of independence from Britain in 1776, found value in the concept, later expressed in the 1787 American Constitution - the basis for political stability, individual freedom, economic growth and social progress. It took intense debate among high quality delegates comprising the leaders of the Revolution, particularly Alexander Hamilton, a brilliant young lawyer from New York.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who were away in critical diplomatic service, agreed that the convention was “an assembly of demigods”. Operationally, separation-of-powers acts to check the tyranny of concentrating power in one arm of government. This is through the concept of checks and balances, which may assert a bi-cameral parliamentary system, with a senate, to tame elected representatives. Another virtue is increased efficiency, effectiveness, and expertise.
In this CPC, the twin concepts come into play as there is a compelling need to enhance the high ideals of this distinguished body with the sacred elements of human rights, constitutionalism, the rule of law and good governance.
To guarantee a paradigm shift in these respects, peerage review is imperative, even for membership. Uganda should be a role model. By hindsight, critical lessons should be drawn from the political and military dictatorships which ruined the country’s socio-economic and political promise. In those regimes, there was a state of nature where life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The renaissance of the separation-of-powers is the existence of the current 1995 Constitution, which elaborately expresses the concept and actually installed the organs.
The CPC should, therefore, view separation-of-powers as a pivotal concept for the socio-economic and political progress of the member countries.
Tom Ongeso,
[email protected]
