The panel comprises a mix of high-profile current and former parliamentarians, journalists and democracy scholars, as well as academics. It will provide substantive guidance as the project is implemented. Professor David Beetham, a well-known academic, is serving as the panel's rapporteur.

“There is an erosion in the role of parliaments”

At the end of the panel discussion, the participants gave their views on current perceptions of parliaments and on how parliamentarians could act in order to enhance their standing at the national and international levels. For Mr. Avraham Burg, former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, “this panel is may be the most important act of the IPU in the last couple of years. It is a response to the global challenge, as it is not only dealing with individual parliaments here and there, but also looking for a new imagination for the parliamentary world”.

But Mr. Burg, who resigned from the Knesset last year, also sounds an alarm. “There is an erosion of the role of parliaments in many sectors of the world. If they know how to give themselves new life, parliaments will have a very interesting future. If not, people will look for alternative systems. This is part of the effort to preserve the representative system; the democratic one.”

That view is echoed by Professor David Beetham when he asserts that “there is the perception that parliaments are increasingly being bypassed in the governing process, and both collectively and individually, their members are held in low public esteem. It is timely, therefore, to seek to establish some clear criteria for democratic parliaments as a contribution to increasing understanding of their place and importance in the democratic process, and improving their public standing within it”.

“Parliamentarians do not take part in the great challenges of our times"”

Francis Kpatindé, a Paris-based Beninese journalist, thinks along the same lines. “In public opinion, the press and the executive branch, parliamentarians are perceived as nay-sayers and time wasters, sometimes because parliamentary work involves a lot of ruckus and is so slow. Parliamentarians should do a better job of communicating, be more transparent and above all explain how they are overseeing the executive branch and consolidating democracy, which protects the interests of the population. That is not understood. They must also open up to domestic social debates and discussions on foreign policy. Parliamentarians do not take part in the great challenges of our times. They have to become more visible”.

That may well be the case. But are governments ready to make room for them on the international political scene? Mr. Kpatindé replies, “They have to fight for it. All freedoms must be fought for. They have to attract the public's attention and make their differences clear”.

“The new demands of democracy”

For Mrs. Christina Murray, Professor of Human Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), parliaments should be the centre of democracy in any State, “but it is also clear that over the last century, they have moved to something of a backstage spot in the view of the public, and perhaps they haven't kept up with addressing the new demands of democracy. A meeting like this allows us to focus on what parliaments can do in developing democratic practices and in deepening democracy”.

Does this mean that there is a gap today between citizens and their representatives? Mrs. Murray responds that “the gap is not only between parliaments and the people; it is perhaps more broadly between the institutions of government and the people, and it is wider in some countries than in others”. She explains that in her country, South Africa, “there are statistics which suggest that the public has very little contact with its public representatives, and that is a problem. There is also the fact that the media tend to look to the executive for news rather than to parliaments, partly because the executive implements policies, and that is the major concern”.

“Re-establishing an engagement with a moral vision”

A new way of doing politics, with a new vision? Mr. Peter de Souza, an expert in democracy assessment at the University of Goa (India), thinks so. He expressed the hope that the panel would assist in creating a new tool, a “kind of navigational code for people who, in their parliamentary life, come across a fork in the road. This code could help them to decide which way to go. We have the potential to re-establish an engagement with a moral vision. The parliament is an institution, a body of procedures, but it is also a moral vision of universality, of equality, of peaceful resolution of conflicts, of inclusion and of negotiation; the truth about parliaments is somewhere in the middle, and not in the extremes”.

Mr. Pierre Cornillon, a former IPU Secretary General, agrees: “This handbook will be welcome in all parliaments, not only those with a long tradition, but above all in those parliaments that are now attempting to become institutions making a contribution to democracy in their countries. Each has some experience to share.”

Afascinating challenge indeed, but how can it be met? Professor Beetham says that “depends on how we consolidate relations between the IPU and the parliaments, and how we market it”.

Concrete steps

Congresswoman Loretta Ann Rosales, Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, has decided to take a number of concrete steps. “I already have in mind what I will do about the process; I will make sure that the deliberation results of our initial panel meeting are discussed in the House of Representatives, the committees involved and the NGOs in which I am a very active member (the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms and the Institute for Public Democracy), as well as in my political party. I will be reporting back to the Speaker of the House on the panel discussion. I have also discussed this meeting with several parliamentarians and with the Ambassador of Philippines at the United Nations in Geneva, who is very interested in its results”.

Democracy every day

Mexican Senator Dulce María Sauri emphasised the “panel's commitment to strengthening parliaments as a most appropriate setting to ensure that democracy takes hold and becomes a common practice. We hope that the handbook that we are intending to publish will help parliaments to strengthen their activities and become more democratic, and thus stronger. Translating the quasi-philosophical concept of democracy into everyday life is of course an enormous challenge.” Mrs. Sauri and the other experts who took part in the Geneva panel make no claim to give lessons in democracy, but rather hope to “find ways to make known the difficulties and achievements of parliaments in their specific situations and in the light of their specific needs”. She says that she does not believe in universally applicable solutions, “all the more so when we talk about how parliaments work. What is important is to make use of techniques that have produced good results in the past, not only for the parliament itself, but above all for the citizens who expect the State to help them solve their problems”.

“We are in a state of ambiguity with regard to existing institutions”

Mrs. Yakin Erturk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women. “I found this panel very interesting. The only problem is that we are not looking sufficiently at the more global aspects. Globalisation has brought in the idea of transgressing national boundaries and challenging governance at the national level, but also, after the September 11th 2001 attacks, it brings up the question of how the world's hierarchy has become monopolar, and what this entails in terms of initiatives for greater democratisation at the national level.”

As a social scientist, Mrs. Erturk explains that “the world is in the process of developing a new social order. We are still going through this, and I do not quite understand the parameters of this changing order. On the other hand, we are still dealing with the existing institutions: nation-States, parliaments, and so forth. Those institutions may not be entirely sufficient in discussing the broader issues, because new institutional formations that correspond to the new transnational parameters have not yet emerged. Even an institution such as the United Nations, which was created to meet the needs of multilateral dialogue after the Second World War, is insufficient in responding to the transnational dimension of the world order today. And the United Nations reform, which is not going very well, is required precisely due to the fact that we are not questioning the fundamental role of the United Nations, but we are trying to make provisions within its existing structure. We are in a state of ambiguity with regard to existing institutions, similar to what the world went through during the transition involving the establishment of nation- States”.

The solution? “We must consider new institutional responses, rather thank keeping our discussions within the limits of existing institutions”.

	“The importance of an independent Speaker” In democracy, it is essential to have an dependent parliament. And for Mr. Cyril Ndebele, a former Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe, “an independent parliament without an independent Speaker is meaningless”. Mr. Ndebele knows perfectly well what he is talking about. “The independence and the integrity of the Speaker is absolutely crucial to the advancement of democracy within the essential institution which is the parliament”. When asked if governments usually allow Speakers of parliament to be independent, his response is a clear reminder to all representatives of the executive branch of the State. “We must know why we have a parliament, and what its role is. It is to provide an oversight view of the executive, and therefore it cannot take instructions from the executive, which it is supposed to oversee”. But when such a scenario occurs, what can a Speaker do? “With all humility, I think that in most cases it is difficult for Speakers to stand up to the executive or against the political authority of a party to which they may belong. But once a person is elected Speaker, that person is in a position above. It gives him or her that independence”.