The British Empire: A source for good or evil? January 2014 | Page 8

The democratic system of parliament

Manon Tirard
Alizée Richardeau

I.

Democratic parliament system

The democratic system of parliament is a modern democratic form where the parliament is the most
important institution. The parliament has a legislative and executive power that is the contrary in the USA,
that uses a presidential system and where the government (executive power) has the majority of the power.
The parliament is made up of people that the citizens have elected. Some countries who use this system are
Australia, India, and Britain. Britain introduced this system. Indeed, when the Britons colonised Australia,
India, Canada and South Africa they brought their culture and also their political system. These old colonies
still use this political system. We’ll study the political system through case studies of Australia, India, Canada
and South Africa.

II.

Australia, India, Canada, South Africa’s case studies

These four colonies have many common points regarding their political system.
The parliament’s role:
- To represent the electorate
- To legislate
- Legislative power is vested in “Parliament”;
- To make laws
- To do the legislation
- The National Assembly is responsible for choosing the president (in countries where there is no monarch)
- Check that the members of the executive perform their work properly
- To form or dissolve the government
But they are some differences between these colonies. Indeed, Canada, Australia and Britain are considered
as constitutional monarchies in which the parliament has the authority and where a monarch is the
ceremonial head of state and where the head of government is a member of the legislature. India is a
Parliamentary Republic where parliament is separate from the executive power and where the president is
the ceremonial head of state whereas the leader of the government (the Prime Minister) comes from the
legislature. South Africa is considered as a Parliamentary Republic with an executive president (who is the
head of state and of the government). He is elected by the parliament and is responsible to the parliament .
Map of different governmental systems

Constitutional Monarchies in which
authority is vested in a parliament.
Parliamentary Republics where
parliament is separate of the
executive power and where the
president is the head ceremonial of
state whereas the leader of
government is a person who came
from to legislature.
Parliamentary republics with an
executive president elected by and
responsible to a parliament.

III- Advantages and disadvantages of this political system
In the democratic system of parliament they are advantages and also disadvantages. The advantages of the
system are that it is faster to pass legislation, there are more political parties so the citizenship has a larger
choice. There are also criticisms. Indeed, in the parliamentary system, the head of government isn’t elected
directly. The other criticism is that the parliament's power isn’t controlled by another institution or
organization.