By Dr Kellen Kiambati
In majority of liberal democratic political systems, the Legislature is one of the core three arms of government. The other two are the Executive and the Judiciary. As nominated representatives of the people, legislators are at the heart of the democratic system. They represent the electorate from whom the armed forces are drawn and whose taxes pay for their upkeep. Legislature helps to clarify and justify military expenditure and why military personnel are deployed overseas. The discussion on Legislature oversight in defence matters will be focused on four main aspects thus: the role of legislature in defence legislation; oversight of defence; roles in budget, approvals, appointments, promotions and declaration of states of emergencies and lastly; challenges of the legislature in performing its oversight role over defence
Defence Legislation
The traditional function of the legislature worldwide is the legislative function. It is stipulated that because government decides strictly what defence policies are to be debated upon, she has great influences on legislators in the parliament. However, the government’s winner takes all controls the agenda of the Legislature with the majority supposed to vote on strictly party lines. It is noted that select committee systems do not only propose amendments to the Bill before Legislature but also recommends review of certain matters before the passage of the Bill. The defence legislation is in three folds namely; the military laws to regulate the Armed Forces; procurement of major defence equipment; approval to participate in foreign/international operations and lastly; enactment of a defence policy to protect the national interest based on the National Security Framework Policy and Defence Strategic Reviews.
Legislative powers are important tools that help most to pass essential legislations on defence matters in most transitional and emerging democracies.
The role of Defence Committees
Defence committees support the work of the Legislature with jurisdiction almost matching the Defence Ministry. It was noted that in the United Kingdom, Eleven members form the Commons Select Committee for Defence with the inclusion of one parliamentary staff of not less than five participate in monitoring the expenditure, policy and administration of the Ministry of Defence and Associated Public bodies and making recommendations.
Approval of Defence budget
The Legislature as the taxpayer’s representative therefore has the duty of stewardship on how moneys are allocated and used. Legislatures in most modern democracies vote for the defence budget in its entireness. As a result of its control over defence budgets, most legislatures have supremacies to dictate the size of armed forces and the equipment to be procured for the military forces in each particular year. The Legislature’s control of spending is however weakened by the practice of approving the estimate as a whole in some countries, rather than voting on individual blocks of spending. It is realized that majority of the states defence budgets have been downsized instead, shifted such funding to health care, education, eradication of poverty and other areas of human security.
Procurement of equipment
The procurement procedure in most established democracies is effectively divided between the Legislature and Defence Ministry. At each stages of procurement, it is mandated that legislators participate fully in it right from the operational requirement, through to the stages of research and development as well as engineering to the eventual full-scale production and entry into service of a price of military equipment. Due to the resistance by the Executive to provide information on vital procurements, the Legislature is denied its constitutional duty of oversight in procurement of defence equipment. This mostly happens in emerging democracies transited especially from military regimes.
Appointments and promotions in the military
Depending on democratic states, the Legislature does have the duty to vet and also approve appointments as well as promotions of officers in the Armed Force to high command positions. But then, such appointments are normally the prerogative of the Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Force. Based also on the constitution or practices of the country, the Legislature exercises its function on checks and balances by scrutinizing/vetting of individuals appointed to such public offices.
Declaration of State of Emergency
It is noted that the Legislature has the capacity or the mandate to declare state of emergency and also the deployment of the military for internal operations when the Executive requests for it. In order to regulate the misuse of the military in the suppression of internal opposition in majority of developing states in the recent past, call for most liberal democratic constitutions to seek for approval from the legislature before a state of emergency is announced in a state. However, declaration of state of emergency varies from states to states. It is only the Executive that solely has the veto power to declare a state of emergency and in the other states it is the Legislature tha has the right to sanction the deployment of military during intra-state conflict. The Legislature has the capacity to sanction a move by the declaration of state of emergency as well as deployment of military within a specified period.
Challenges of Legislatures
In spite of the numerous important roles played by the Legislature over the years, the following deficits are identified; the placement of the Legislature at a disadvantaged position over its oversight role; majority of the Defence Committees members are naïve on matters of defence and military; the Legislature as a matter of fact does not have highly qualified parliamentary staff made of researchers, expertise and administrative staff.
Conclusion
The Legislature plays important roles over the past years. It is an organ that cannot be done away with in the Constitutions of majority of new emerging democratic states. It has say over policy, oversight, budget issues, procurement of defence equipment, promotions in the armed forces and the deployment of the military in a state of emergency yet a lot of countries have the constitutional and legal framework which marginalizes the role of the Legislature relative to the Executive in the formulating and executing of policy.
