The Hindu : Call to wage joint fight against terrorism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 23, 2002

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National

Call to wage joint fight against terrorism

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Oct. 22. Battling terrorism is high on the agenda of the week-long session of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) which began here on Tuesday.

The Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi, who inaugurated the association's 14th seminar, called upon democratic societies across the world to wage a joint struggle against terrorism to safeguard democratic values and institutions.

The attacks on Parliament, "the very heart and soul of our democracy", and on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly not only shocked the entire nation, but also underlined the vulnerability of democratic societies to these threats, he said. Ironically, terrorism exploited the strengths of democracy such as freedom of movement, lack of curbs, access to public places.

Terming the December 13 outrage at the Parliament House as a "pre-planned attack on our democracy", the Speaker said "some people do not want our democracy to work". The Akshardham incident showed terrorists did not spare "temples of democracy or temples of faith". The whole world should unite to battle the terrorist challenge.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, agreed with Mr. Joshi and stressed thee need for a consensus across the world to tackle terrorism in a firm and decisive manner.

About 30 participants — parliamentarians, presiding officers and a few Ministers — from over 12 Commonwealth countries are attending the seminar which will also discuss issues such as executive accountability to Parliament, role of presiding officers in maintaining dignity and decorum, code of ethics for parliamentarians, etc.

Mr. Joshi noted with concern that Parliament control over the executive and the latter's accountability was on the wane. Parliament surveillance was a pre-requisite to ensure that power was not misused and mis-governance was prevented. Equally important was parliamentary control over expenditure. Due to paucity of time, Parliament was not able to consider financial matters in detail. The creation of departmental standing committees in 1993 ensured that the demands of the various ministries were now more closely scrutinised instead of being guillotined. He wanted the State legislatures also to follow suit.

He said the presiding officers should not merely enforce rules of procedure, but demonstrate sagacity in dealing with the members to facilitate smooth conduct of the legislatures. For their part, the members should subordinate personal or political interests to public good and not use the sacred forum to score "political points". Lack of dignity and decorum, much in evidence these days, was eroding the image of parliamentarians. Regrettably, the code of conduct was being violated by the very people who evolved it.

On legislature-judiciary relations, Mr. Joshi felt that members should take timely and judicious decisions. K. Prathibha Bharati, Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, said the CPA was striving hard to forge international cooperation against terrorism and strengthening parliamentary democracy.

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