Maravi

Parliament, media and citizenship

Parliament, media and citizenship
Written by Prof Fackson Banda
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 10:16:10 AM

The Zambian Parliament has clearly undergone fundamental changes in the last decade most of them supportive of the general architecture of democratic practice. The Parliamentary reforms demonstrate what appears to be a democratic realignment in Zambian politics favouring a more open parliamentary system in which citizens engage openly with their representatives in the affairs of government.

In view of these positive developments, I was somewhat taken aback by the Honourable Speaker's solemn announcement to the National Assembly on January 23, 2009 that “some Hon Members had developed the tendency of divulging privileged and confidential information to the media”. He went on to explain that the letters, petitions and other forms of documents on particular matters received for his attention had been “reported or reproduced, verbatim, in the print and electronic media”.

Citing the National Assembly (Powers and Privileges) Act, he informed the House that information submitted to his office, a Committee of the House, or office of the Clerk of the National Assembly, constituted privileged and confidential information. Therefore, it was not to be made available to the media without the express authority of the House.

The Honourable Speaker was concerned that by releasing confidential information to the media, a Member of Parliament might inadvertently open up the House to premature public scrutiny. This, according to him, could mislead the public, resulting in them drawing premature conclusions based on incomplete information.

The Honourable Speaker threatened to impose severe penalties on erring members “if that is the only way to restore the dignity and integrity of this House”. The Honourable Speaker made it clear that “going to the media constitutes contempt of the House”.

Clearly, this message was directly targeted at Parliamentarians. Only indirectly was it aimed at the media and the general public. But it would be illuminating to try to understand the implications of the Speaker's announcement for media operations in a democracy.

The rules and procedures of decorum may indeed apply to the members of Parliament in order to facilitate an orderly functioning of the parliamentary system. But there are, of course, limitations on how far Parliament can enforce these when non-parliamentarians are involved. Non-parliamentarians include media institutions and ordinary members of the public.

The Honourable Speaker was careful to address this announcement at the parliamentarians themselves, realising perhaps that it would be easier to “police” them than the media or the public. But even this stern warning, while generally attempting to impose bureaucratic order on parliamentarian proceedings, may be interpreted as not being supportive of media freedom.

We all accept that democracy is encased in institutions, including parliaments, courts, and the like. Such institutions ensure the orderly functioning of democracy, but we must remember that a vibrant democracy is defined by its very accommodation of often chaotic and disorganised expressions of freedom. We all know that parliamentary politics is by definition oppositional. We assume that our Parliament will not be dominated by one political party - we are a multiparty democracy.

But our exercise of democratic rights and freedoms can sometimes be hampered by the very institutional procedures of democracy that we value. As a result, we sometimes end up with what Benjamin Barber calls “thin democracy”. Real, organic participation is encumbered because we must wait for the wheels of the bureaucracy of democracy to grind before we can get any useful information from our public institutions. This is where one might differ with the Honourable Speaker's assertion that there might be “premature public scrutiny”.

We must remember that parliamentary democracy is not an “event” that the media must report only when it has matured. To suggest that we must wait for all the parliamentary processes to finish before the media can extract information from parliamentarians is to assume that information is a series of Parliamentary-bureaucratic “events”.

But parliamentary democracy is both a process and an event. As a process, it is a contested terrain, which encapsulates the politics of generating, disseminating and consuming political information. It is for this reason that governments in developed democracies sometimes deliberately “leak” information in order to assess possible public scrutiny. It can be argued that the deliberate effort by some parliamentarians to “leak” what the Honourable Speaker calls “incomplete information” is an attempt at further “democratising” public access to information. It must be understood that, in the absence of a Freedom of Information (FOI) law, such “breaches” of Parliamentary information management will continue.

A more citizen-centred way to look at this issue is by recognising the fact that the public - Zambian citizens - are keen on following the policy and legislative processes in the country as a process. Rather than covering a press statement issued by Parliament for example, which is effectively an “event”, the media would rather they followed the politics or contestations behind policy and legislative processes. This is the unpredictable reality of democratic politics. It ceases to be a bureaucratically managed event over which all the policy-makers and legislators appear to have consensus. On the contrary, parliamentary politics is confrontational. It is a murky terrain, full of twists and turns. It is these twists and turns that make democracy worth having, because power is dispersed across the broad political spectrum.

Let us be clear: We all must know that Parliament is imbued with power, perhaps excessively so, to punish both parliamentarians and citizens. We can question the colonial basis of the legislation that arrogates so much power to the National Assembly. Indeed, we can, as I am doing, question the democratic-participatory validity of the National Assembly (Powers and Privileges) Act. But, as part of that critique, we must acknowledge the power that Parliament seems to exude. Indeed, questioning Parliamentary powers and privileges is part of our history.

Take, for example, Nalumino Mundia, one of our founding fathers who, when he was suspended for three months for disregarding the authority of the Speaker, asked the High Court to quash his suspension. But the court rejected his application, arguing that the internal proceedings of Parliament could not be questioned in any court.

Fast forward to February 23, 1996, when The Post's Fred M'membe, Bright Mwape and Lucy Banda Sichone went into hiding to avoid imprisonment on charges of contempt of Parliament after the National Assembly found them guilty of violating the National Assembly (Powers and Privileges) Act. They, too, challenged the constitutionality of the National Assembly (powers and privileges) Act in the High Court. The court held that Parliament was not a “court” in the judicial sense of the word. But the High court still reinforced the “supremacy” of Parliament by holding that it had the power to punish for contempt.

So questioning parliamentary rules of procedure is a legitimate aspect of our multiparty democracy. Parliament is certainly not above us, as citizens of this country. If some members of parliament believe that there is something important to “leak” to the citizenry through the media, so be it! The Honourable Speaker's announcement, though clearly well-meaning from the point of view of preserving internal procedure, could have a “chilling effect” on equally well-meaning parliamentarians who are eager to stimulate public debate about key policy and legislative matters beyond the immediate confines of the National Assembly.

What is important, I think, is for the Speaker to strike a balance between protecting the internal workings of Parliament and ensuring a more open parliamentary system. This is no easy feat but it is necessary for the good of multiparty democracy.

Labels: GOVERNANCE, PARLIAMENT

posted by MrK @ 10:15 AM