Public Law - Ministerial Responsibilty and Coalition Governments Essay

Public Law - Ministerial Responsibilty and Coalition Governments - Essay Example ? Sociologists believe that this political phenomenon in most states in Britain could also happen in Westminster as officials have introduced â€Å"a semi-proportional electoral system which, it argued, would entail frequent, if not permanent, coalition† although electoral reform seems near to nil. 2 Anent to this phenomena is the recent move of the British parliament to publish a Cabinet Manual that will contain a collection of statutes, court judgments and treaties which they considered as â€Å"first ever written legal convention and precedent on how UK is run†Ã¢â‚¬â€an attempt toward codification. These developments in the political arena must be scrutinized by electorates to be abreast with government official’s plans. It is also in this context that we will explore issues relating to workability of coalition of government viz-a-viz its ministerial duties as well as the proposed codification of conventions, which is largely perceived as unnecessary. 1. Coal ition Government: Workable? That question has been raised by a British columnist at the height of electoral controversies in 2010. It seems that the question remained unsettled since hodge-podge of discourse revived the theme as election nears again. But what is a coalition government? Why does it attempt to question the competence and capacity of the single party’s governance especially in matters that relate to fairness and representation? 3 Coalition government is a composition of several political parties cooperating to â€Å"govern a country or a region.† 4 It removes an elite unitary system of political decision-makings and allowed democratization of political discourse by tolerating convergence and intra-party agreements. It is often a structural consequence whenever there are economic problems, unpeace, and political events such as merging of political parties during election. Practically, coalition government permeates sharing of executive powers and therefore changes the paradigms; broadens political party behaviors; widen operational methods in governance including internal rules of political engagements within the administration. 5 But these changes are neither worrisome nor irrelevant because all countries worldwide evolved from monarchical or unitary toward two or multi-party coalitions to democratize governance. 6 Nousiainen and Blondel (1993) have once asserted that â€Å"coalitions can be more or less extreme, more or less ideologically diverse, and composed of partners who are more or less equal.† The system espoused collective cabinet responsibility and legislated policies are credited to the government. 7 Policies will therefore be attributed to the government collectively and they expect stringent legislative discipline, unless they’d agree to exercise freely their respective votes during decision-making. Last year, UK officials formed a coalition  government after serious discussions between the Conservative Party  and the  Liberal Democrats. 8 Observers however thought that this coalition politics have â€Å"focused so much on selection instead of accountability† perceiving that its political survival is considerably dependent from electoral process. 9 Political critics argued that government coalition, for it to be workable, should be built on trust. Some political shenanigans however bared experiences of alleged serial infidelity of Liberal Democrats, hence it is likely that government will be riddled with mutual