The best way to achieve balance between legislative and executive branches in a parliamentary democracy is to bolster the parliamentary committee system.

This view came from a workshop of the 49th conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre yesterday.

"The committee system is a very effective way of ensuring executive

accountability to the legislature. The committees have the in-built advantage of being smaller bodies with greater time available to them to examine an issue in detail," said India's Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, the lead speaker at the workshop -- Parliament and the Executive: Building a More Effective Partnership. Michael Tshipinare, a lawmaker of Botswana, moderated.

Manohar Joshi said the legislature in a parliamentary system must ensure that the executive remains constantly responsive and account-

able to it. "The parliament is supreme and its relationship with the executive is not one of equal partners."

"But the relationship between the parliament and the executive should not also be limited to critical and adversarial action. The executive must enjoy all the freedom it needs, remaining at the same time responsive to the parliamentary influence and direction and ultimately to the aspirations of the people at large. "On the other hand, parliament must work with the executive in a constructive manner, giving its critical support and keeping an effective surveillance over its activities.

"It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the real work of parliament nowadays is performed in the committees."

Joshi also observed democracy is the best known mechanism for ensuring social harmony and achieving lasting economic development.

"Hence, we all, whether in parliament or in executive, have to work together consciously to strengthen the system. We should remember that if democracy fails, there will be no executive, no parliament: the future of mankind will be very bleak."

Moderator Tshipinare meanwhile said the workshop participants had observed that many executives were more powerful than their parliaments and "we discussed how to overcome this phenomenon."

"If parliament knows its role and functions well then there is no scope for its being undermined," he said.

"Bureaucrats have a tendency of being authoritative over parliament. Parliamentary standing committees could be a means to go beyond such bureaucratic tangles and serve the

nation with transparency and accountability."

Speaker of Gujarat Legislative Assembly Mangalbhai Patel, chief of Bangladesh's CPA delegation Khandakar Delwar Hossain, Secretary General of Rajya Sabha Dr Yogendra Narain and a good number of delegates from other member countries also spoke.

Dr Yogendra Narain said parliamentary committees provide a vital link between the government on the one side and the parliament and the people on the other.

Mangalbhai Patel meanwhile focused on parliament's political and financial controls over the executive. "Parliament, being the vehicle for socio-economic transformation, has to perform multifunctional roles. It has to stand as symbol of unity of the nation in any situation. It should also reflect the mood and temper of the nation."

Khandakar Delwar Hossain said parliamentary democracy flourishes through co-operation between the legislature and the executive.