Accountability is an important principle in public life.The doctrines of responsible government and accountability go hand in hand. Government is responsible to the legislature. As part of that responsibility it must account to the Parliament for its policies, decisions and actions. It must do so honestly and openly, without equivocation or concealment, subject only the limited circumstances where the public interest genuinely demands confidentiality.
Any government will naturally be reluctant to produce information that may embarrass it, show it acted arbitrarily, with undue haste or without full knowledge of important facts, opinion and consequences. But disclosure in a democracy is a requirement and a right. It is the community’s safeguard against tyranny, injustice, corruption, bad faith, incompetence and simple error or omission.The Freedom of Information Act is an important tool in this
regard.
It is a prime duty of the Parliament to hold the Government to account and to ensure that Ministers and public servants do not pursue their own interests, but rather those of the Parliament and the public.
The ultimate measure of accountability is the election, when a Government is accountable directly to the electors for its performance, for the fulfilment or otherwise of its promises and for its program for the future. Between elections, the Government is accountable to the people, through Parliament, for all its decisions, programs and actions.
The doctrine of ministerial responsibility is an important underpinning to accountability. Ministers must make full and frank disclosure of all relevant facts and matters when called upon, and take effective remedial action when faults or problems emerge.
Ministers should be responsible for fostering a culture of accountability. They should be held responsible for the direction of departmental policy, for the success or failure of their major programs, for the overall effectiveness and efficiency of their Departments. Traditionally, Ministers who did not fulfill their responsibilities resigned or were dismissed.
In the modern parliamentary culture, strict ministerial accountability has been diminished. Ministers who fail in their responsibility are forced to resign only where they have lost the confidence of the Premier or where their actions adversely affect the Government.
Political accountability, however, goes much further than its exposition by the Courts. There is political accountability
• to the Parliament, as representing the community;
• through Parliament and the media, to that community;
• to the Auditor General as representing the Parliament.
While politicians and political parties play their games of elections, deceptions, propagandizing and counter-accusation of ‘extreme deceptions’ of each other in their power contesting games, let us NOT to forget what an democratic elected government, the parliament houses representatives and the ministers should really be about: being held accountable.
Source: A future of our House-section 5
