Law and the presidential option
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There are at least three powers of the President of India under the present Constitution that act as a stumbling block to any political party wanting to shape the rule of law in a parliamentary democracy. It is in this legal context that one must understand the Home Minister’s push for a presidential system to replace the prime ministerial system. The President can not only ask the Council of Ministers under the Prime Minister to reconsider the advice requiring him to put his signatures on a Union Government proposal of making a law either by legislation or administrative instruction (Article 74 proviso) but, under Article 78(c), direct a minister’s decision to be submitted for consideration of the Council of Ministers. In a coalition government of the present kind this puts an effective check on ministers since the President’s power to refer to the Council of Ministers covers “any matter” on which a decision has been taken by a minister. The Constitution considers this power to be so important as todeclare it to be one of the “duties of a Prime Minister” wherein the Prime Minister must comply if the President so requires. Combined with the duty of the Prime Minister under Article 78(b) to furnish such information to the President relating to the administration of the affairs of the Union and the proposals for legislation, the danger of any one person or group of political interests implementing personal or hidden agenda under the guise of rule of law becomes relatively difficult as compared to a presidential system which inherently has no such check. These provisions of information, consideration by the Council of Ministers of a minister’s decision and reconsideration of the advice of the Council itself make it almost impossible to hijack the rule of law secretly. A presidential system without all this enables such secret hijacking, especially in the appointment to the country’s most powerful legal office - the Chief Justice of India. A presidential system makes it possible for a determinedpolitical party to rig the entire constitutional judiciary of the high courts and the Supreme Court secretly and then have a judicial stamp of approval for its version of the “rule of law”. More : indianexpress.com |