Every good accountant understands the principle of substance over form.
For those who do not work in accounting, the idea is simple: focus on what actually happened, not simply how it was presented.
Parliament should demand no less.
Last Friday, Opposition MP Marvin Gonzales spent 45 minutes presenting a Private Members’ Motion on the country’s water supply. Everyone knew what was before the House—the Speaker, the Government, the Opposition and citizens watching.
But Gonzales did not say four customary words before his time expired: “I beg to move.”
The debate ended. No vote was taken. Parliament never got to examine Government’s handling of an issue affecting thousands of citizens.
The question is not simply whether Gonzales failed to follow the customary parliamentary formula. There is now legitimate debate over whether that omission amounted to a procedural error at all. The more important question is whether Parliament was served by allowing form to defeat substance.
Hansard has previously recorded similar procedural slips being corrected and debate allowed to continue. Procedure guides Parliament, but judgement, precedent and convention also matter.
Taken alone, last Friday might be dismissed as an isolated procedural ruling. Placed beside other recent events, however, a pattern begins to emerge.
That matters because this occurred on Private Members’ Day.
Private members’ business exists because Government should not control everything Parliament discusses. It gives members outside Government a limited opportunity to place issues before the country. In other words, it deliberately creates friction.
And democracy is supposed to create friction.
The Opposition creates friction because Government must be challenged. Parliamentary questions create friction because Government must explain its actions. Independent senators create friction because Government must persuade people outside its political ranks. Procurement rules create friction because public money cannot simply be spent by whatever route is most convenient.
Parliamentary conventions create friction because possessing a power does not necessarily mean exercising it to its maximum.
The friction is not a flaw in democracy. The friction is democracy.
Consider the Senate.
The Special Operations Bill produced a 15–15 division. All six Opposition senators and all nine independent senators opposed it. Senate President Wade Mark exercised his casting vote and the bill passed 16–15.
Days later, the Public Procurement Amendment Bill produced essentially the same result: another 15–15 deadlock, again broken by the President’s casting vote.
The President has that power; that is not disputed. But democratic judgement requires more than establishing that a power exists.
A government is entitled to disagree with all nine independent senators. But a government unable to persuade even one of them should at least ask why.
Perhaps the legislation requires amendment, concerns deserve accommodation, or Government should pause and persuade.
The Law Association has reminded the country of the constitutional significance of independent senators and the importance of hearing views from outside Government. Yet, the legislation proceeded.
Government has also relied on Standing Orders to decline parliamentary questions, with the effect that once the provision is invoked, further scrutiny can be shut down. The concern is not whether such rules exist, but whether rules intended to regulate Parliament are becoming shields against scrutiny.
Procedure should facilitate democratic accountability, not frustrate it.
Then there is procurement.
I have already written about amendments that broaden exemptions, shorten challenge periods and restrict important interventions by the Office of Procurement Regulation.
Government says these changes will accelerate development and housing—legitimate objectives.
But when guardrails become inconvenient, should the answer be to improve the road—or remove the guardrails?
Taken together, the pattern becomes harder to dismiss.
When the Opposition uses its limited parliamentary opportunity to question Government, procedure becomes an immovable wall. When parliamentary questions are declined, another avenue of scrutiny narrows.
When the Opposition and every independent senator object to major legislation, Government proceeds. When procurement safeguards frustrate the preferred route to delivering projects, the safeguards are reduced.
Each event can be explained separately. Their cumulative effect should concern citizens.
Are institutions designed to slow Government down, question it and require it to justify itself increasingly being treated as obstacles to be overcome?
There is a difference between governing decisively and governing without friction.
Democracy deliberately makes governing difficult. Courts create friction. Regulators create friction. Oppositions create friction. Independent Senators create friction. Procurement laws create friction.
That inconvenience has a name: accountability.
Government is entitled to pursue its programme. It is entitled to believe the Opposition is wrong and independent senators are mistaken.
But responsible government requires more than asking: Can we do this? Sometimes it must also ask: Should we do it this way?
Institutions are rarely weakened in one dramatic act. I have previously warned that erosion can occur one exemption, one reduced power and one shortened safeguard at a time.
Perhaps we should now add: one convention discarded, one dissenting voice ignored, one question left unanswered, one debate prevented.
The danger is not always that rules are broken. Sometimes rules are enforced rigidly when they prevent scrutiny, interpreted broadly when they facilitate power, and changed when they become inconvenient.
Democracy requires governments to govern. But it also requires institutions capable of saying: not so fast, explain yourself, persuade us.
That creates friction.
The friction is democracy.
Robert Le Hunte is a former executive director of Republic Bank Limited and the Inter-American Development Bank, former ANSA Bank managing director, former minister of Public Utilities, and presently treasurer of the People’s National Movement.
