It is important that the government is held accountable for changes to laws that it makes. But this accountability needs to have consequences. If there are no consequences, there is no accountability.

For example, if the government changes a law, and those changes have a negative impact on the citizens and country, then if the citizens hold the government as as whole accountable, that won’t achieve anything. The government is very unlikely to fall because of a single bad law, so nothing will happen. No consequences.

For the same reason, the citizens cannot hold the prime minister accountable. The prime minister cannot manually examine and approve every single change to every law. Not just because of the lack of time but because the prime minister is only an expert in one or two fields. A prime minister who studied law cannot properly evaluate changes to an agriculture law, so it makes no sense to hold him directly accountable for those changes.

The person who is held directly accountable for a change to a law needs to be (A) an expert in that field, and (B) a high-ranking government official. For example, a minister in the government.

I imagine the following process:

  1. The government decides to make changes to a law in the field of agriculture.
  2. Various workers in the government make changes to the text of the law.
  3. Once the changes are finished, the proposed law is given to the agriculture minister.
  4. The agriculture minister manually goes over each change and evaluates it.
  5. If the minister has any issues with those changes, he sends the text back for further improvements.
  6. Once the minister is happy with the changes, he approves the changes to the law. He vouches for the changes. If the changes end up being bad for the citizens and the country, he will be directly accountable.
  7. The changed law is given to the Parliament who votes on it.

My main question is, does step 6 formally happen in your country? Is there a formal procedure where the relevant minister signs a document where he proclaims that he vouches for the changes and is directly accountable for them?


Leave a Reply