GOOD GOVERNANCE
Good governance is an indeterminate term used in development literature to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights. Governance describes the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). The term governance can apply to corporate, international, national, local governance or to the interactions between other sectors of society.
In international affairs, analysis of good governance can look at any of the following relationships:---
between governments and markets,
between governments and citizens,
between governments and the private or voluntary sector,
between elected officials and appointed officials,
between local institutions and urban and rural dwellers,
between legislature and executive branches, and
between nation states and institutions.
The varying types of comparisons comprising the analysis of governance in scholastic and practical discussion can cause the meaning of "good governance" to vary greatly from practitioner to practitioner.
.HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights is a universalist concept of legal rights and ethics, which developed out of the Liberal Enlightenment in Europe and the United States, though it has since spread around the world. Egalitarian and relativist in outlook, proponents of the concept usually assert that all human beings—regardless of cultural, organisational, religious or ethnic associations—should be entitled to certain social, political and legal rights of toleration. The precise nature of what should or should not be regarded as a human right is heatedly debated, thus the concept is somewhat ambigious and open to interpretation.
The intellectual foundations of the concept can be traced back to rationalism of the Liberal Enlightenment, with figures such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau and Immanuel Kant. In the political realm the concept was brought to the fore in the 18th century by the American Revolution and French Revolution, culminating in the United States Bill of Rights and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively. However, the concept only began to gain a substantial hegemony in influence over international law and geopolitics after the Second World War, with the introduction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
“ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
International Human Rights Agencies
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The UNHCHR also provides a useful Human Rights Treaty Bodies Database, which offers information on a range of international bodies that monitor human rights treaties.
A very useful UN site presents links to a wide range of its many sites related to human rights issues, including:
Children
Indigenous peoples
Racism and racial discrimination
Slavery
Women
.FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, colour or sex. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions.Fundamental Rights is a charter of rights. It guarantees civil liberties such that all people can lead their lives in peace and harmony. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus. Violations of these rights result in punishments , subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, colour or sex. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England's Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.
The six fundamental rights recognised by the constitutions.
The right to equality
The right to freedom
The right to freedom from exploitation
The right to freedom of religion
Cultural and educational rights
The right to constitutional remedies
.PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
A situation in which the activity of politics is devalued is inimical to parliamentary democracy. Parliament, after all, is fundamentally about debate – "rhetoric" in the classical Greek sense – and the transacting of the people’s business in public. It is also about the right to dissent in a civilized manner. Genuine political opposition is a necessary attribute of democracy, tolerance, and trust in the ability of citizens to resolve differences by peaceful means. The existence of an opposition, without which politics ceases and administration takes over, is indispensable to the functioning of parliamentary political systems. If these systems are perceived as not working well – as being "seriously overloaded," to quote a distinguished Canadian Opposition Leader, the Hon. Robert Stanfield – it may be the rights of political oppositions which are immediately and most visibly at stake, but ultimately the threat is to democratic rights and freedoms generally. The following paper is an attempt to come to grips with the challenging nature of the opposition’s role in Parliament, specifically in the Canadian context.
GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES
Stong Opposition is essential for a vibrant Domocracy.
The division between government and opposition is as old as political democracy itself. In Aristotle’s Athenian polity the essence of self-government was that citizens were, in turn, both the rulers and the ruled. Government could alternate among different groups of citizens, and the minority could seek to persuade a majority of its point of view by peaceful (i.e., political) means. In an age of mass politics, direct citizen democracy has been replaced, with rare exceptions, by representative systems providing for periodic elections. In turn, these electoral contests are usually dominated by a small number of political parties which select their own candidates and leaders. What has not changed, however, in our modern liberal-democratic society is the hallowed principle that government must rest on the consent of the governed – which means, inter alia, that the minority accepts the right of the majority to make decisions, provided that there is reciprocal respect for the minority’s right to dissent from these decisions and to promote alternative policies. With the advent of representative and responsible parliamentary government, the distinction between "government" and "opposition" has become more formalized and routinized, but the underlying principles have not changed.
Of course it is not only in British-style Parliaments that this sort of ongoing legitimate contestation for decision-making power takes place. Every pluralistic democratic legislature contains both supporters and opponents of the executive. And, in all parts of the world, these legislatures are confronted with the problem of "executive dominance" in the face of modern demands for more and more government services.(1) The complaint is often heard that because of these pressures legislative politics is inefficient, ineffective, and in danger of becoming obsolete. Accordingly, we shall look at some of the countervailing power available to oppositions in legislatures which, through their heritage in the British Commonwealth, look to the "Westminster model" of parliamentary democracy for inspiration.
Although one speaks of a "model," British parliamentary practice has evolved over centuries and still rests entirely on convention. The emergence of a set pattern of government and opposition is of comparatively recent origin. There was a time when the subjects thought fit for parliamentary debate were severely limited, when opposition to the government’s handling of affairs of state could be considered to smack of treason, and hence to be dangerous. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Member of Parliament who went beyond presenting private, local and special grievances or bills, to oppose the Crown, or even to debate such national issues as the right of succession, foreign policy and religion, risked imprisonment or worse. Of this period the historian Macaulay commented:
... every man who then meddled with public affairs took his life in his hand... It was, we seriously believe, as safe to be a highwayman as to be a distinguished leader of the opposition.
With the development of cabinet government and the rise of political parties, responsible government has come to rely on electoral strategies in addition to strictly parliamentary ones. The governing party is "responsible" to the Commons chiefly in that it can be turned out of office and replaced by another party at the next election. The government must continue to enjoy the confidence of the House between elections, but, even in minority government situations, the real test of confidence is not in the daily balance of forces between government and opposition in the chamber but in the anticipated or threatened electoral contest among the major parties. As the distinguished Canadian parliamentarian Stanley Knowles put it:
The opposition should so conduct itself in Parliament as to persuade the people of the country that it could be an improvement on the government of the day. No one will deny that our system works best when there is a change of government at reasonable intervals.
The role of an opposition party, Mr. Knowles noted, is to check and prod, but ultimately to replace the government party. Bernard Crick has also described the British House of Commons as the place where a "continuous election campaign ... is fought." In Canada in this century, however, Mr. Knowles’ criterion of "reasonable intervals" has often been more the exception than the rule. This has led a number of observers to point out the potential dangers to parliamentary processes of long periods where one party controls the executive. Because electoral standing is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of government legitimacy, one must guard against devaluing the ongoing test of legitimacy which takes place through the intermediary of the legislature and the legislative opposition.
Good governance is an indeterminate term used in development literature to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights. Governance describes the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). The term governance can apply to corporate, international, national, local governance or to the interactions between other sectors of society.
In international affairs, analysis of good governance can look at any of the following relationships:---
between governments and markets,
between governments and citizens,
between governments and the private or voluntary sector,
between elected officials and appointed officials,
between local institutions and urban and rural dwellers,
between legislature and executive branches, and
between nation states and institutions.
The varying types of comparisons comprising the analysis of governance in scholastic and practical discussion can cause the meaning of "good governance" to vary greatly from practitioner to practitioner.
.HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights is a universalist concept of legal rights and ethics, which developed out of the Liberal Enlightenment in Europe and the United States, though it has since spread around the world. Egalitarian and relativist in outlook, proponents of the concept usually assert that all human beings—regardless of cultural, organisational, religious or ethnic associations—should be entitled to certain social, political and legal rights of toleration. The precise nature of what should or should not be regarded as a human right is heatedly debated, thus the concept is somewhat ambigious and open to interpretation.
The intellectual foundations of the concept can be traced back to rationalism of the Liberal Enlightenment, with figures such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau and Immanuel Kant. In the political realm the concept was brought to the fore in the 18th century by the American Revolution and French Revolution, culminating in the United States Bill of Rights and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively. However, the concept only began to gain a substantial hegemony in influence over international law and geopolitics after the Second World War, with the introduction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
“ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
International Human Rights Agencies
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The UNHCHR also provides a useful Human Rights Treaty Bodies Database, which offers information on a range of international bodies that monitor human rights treaties.
A very useful UN site presents links to a wide range of its many sites related to human rights issues, including:
Children
Indigenous peoples
Racism and racial discrimination
Slavery
Women
.FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, colour or sex. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions.Fundamental Rights is a charter of rights. It guarantees civil liberties such that all people can lead their lives in peace and harmony. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus. Violations of these rights result in punishments , subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, colour or sex. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England's Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.
The six fundamental rights recognised by the constitutions.
The right to equality
The right to freedom
The right to freedom from exploitation
The right to freedom of religion
Cultural and educational rights
The right to constitutional remedies
.PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
A situation in which the activity of politics is devalued is inimical to parliamentary democracy. Parliament, after all, is fundamentally about debate – "rhetoric" in the classical Greek sense – and the transacting of the people’s business in public. It is also about the right to dissent in a civilized manner. Genuine political opposition is a necessary attribute of democracy, tolerance, and trust in the ability of citizens to resolve differences by peaceful means. The existence of an opposition, without which politics ceases and administration takes over, is indispensable to the functioning of parliamentary political systems. If these systems are perceived as not working well – as being "seriously overloaded," to quote a distinguished Canadian Opposition Leader, the Hon. Robert Stanfield – it may be the rights of political oppositions which are immediately and most visibly at stake, but ultimately the threat is to democratic rights and freedoms generally. The following paper is an attempt to come to grips with the challenging nature of the opposition’s role in Parliament, specifically in the Canadian context.
GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES
Stong Opposition is essential for a vibrant Domocracy.
The division between government and opposition is as old as political democracy itself. In Aristotle’s Athenian polity the essence of self-government was that citizens were, in turn, both the rulers and the ruled. Government could alternate among different groups of citizens, and the minority could seek to persuade a majority of its point of view by peaceful (i.e., political) means. In an age of mass politics, direct citizen democracy has been replaced, with rare exceptions, by representative systems providing for periodic elections. In turn, these electoral contests are usually dominated by a small number of political parties which select their own candidates and leaders. What has not changed, however, in our modern liberal-democratic society is the hallowed principle that government must rest on the consent of the governed – which means, inter alia, that the minority accepts the right of the majority to make decisions, provided that there is reciprocal respect for the minority’s right to dissent from these decisions and to promote alternative policies. With the advent of representative and responsible parliamentary government, the distinction between "government" and "opposition" has become more formalized and routinized, but the underlying principles have not changed.
Of course it is not only in British-style Parliaments that this sort of ongoing legitimate contestation for decision-making power takes place. Every pluralistic democratic legislature contains both supporters and opponents of the executive. And, in all parts of the world, these legislatures are confronted with the problem of "executive dominance" in the face of modern demands for more and more government services.(1) The complaint is often heard that because of these pressures legislative politics is inefficient, ineffective, and in danger of becoming obsolete. Accordingly, we shall look at some of the countervailing power available to oppositions in legislatures which, through their heritage in the British Commonwealth, look to the "Westminster model" of parliamentary democracy for inspiration.
Although one speaks of a "model," British parliamentary practice has evolved over centuries and still rests entirely on convention. The emergence of a set pattern of government and opposition is of comparatively recent origin. There was a time when the subjects thought fit for parliamentary debate were severely limited, when opposition to the government’s handling of affairs of state could be considered to smack of treason, and hence to be dangerous. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Member of Parliament who went beyond presenting private, local and special grievances or bills, to oppose the Crown, or even to debate such national issues as the right of succession, foreign policy and religion, risked imprisonment or worse. Of this period the historian Macaulay commented:
... every man who then meddled with public affairs took his life in his hand... It was, we seriously believe, as safe to be a highwayman as to be a distinguished leader of the opposition.
With the development of cabinet government and the rise of political parties, responsible government has come to rely on electoral strategies in addition to strictly parliamentary ones. The governing party is "responsible" to the Commons chiefly in that it can be turned out of office and replaced by another party at the next election. The government must continue to enjoy the confidence of the House between elections, but, even in minority government situations, the real test of confidence is not in the daily balance of forces between government and opposition in the chamber but in the anticipated or threatened electoral contest among the major parties. As the distinguished Canadian parliamentarian Stanley Knowles put it:
The opposition should so conduct itself in Parliament as to persuade the people of the country that it could be an improvement on the government of the day. No one will deny that our system works best when there is a change of government at reasonable intervals.
The role of an opposition party, Mr. Knowles noted, is to check and prod, but ultimately to replace the government party. Bernard Crick has also described the British House of Commons as the place where a "continuous election campaign ... is fought." In Canada in this century, however, Mr. Knowles’ criterion of "reasonable intervals" has often been more the exception than the rule. This has led a number of observers to point out the potential dangers to parliamentary processes of long periods where one party controls the executive. Because electoral standing is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of government legitimacy, one must guard against devaluing the ongoing test of legitimacy which takes place through the intermediary of the legislature and the legislative opposition.
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