The Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces as co-chairpersons present the Report of the Joint Rules Committee, dated 17 November 2003, on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Joint Subcommitt

The Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces as co-chairpersons present the Report of the Joint Rules Committee, dated 17 November 2003, on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Joint Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability, as follows:

Introduction
At the beginning of 1999, Parliament engaged the services of a consultant to research Parliament’s oversight functions and to:
(1) Identify areas in which Parliament is required to exercise oversight;
(2) Assess existing Parliamentary mechanisms and procedures to hold the
Executive accountable; and
(3) Make recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
Parliamentary oversight.

The research was to be conducted against the background that:
(1) The Constitution gives Parliament specific responsibilities for oversight of the Executive. In terms of section 42(3) of the Constitution the functions of the National Assembly include scrutiny and oversight of Executive action;
(2) Section 55(2) of the Constitution places an obligation on the National Assembly to provide for mechanisms to ensure that executive organs of state in the national sphere of government are accountable to it; and to maintain oversight of the exercise of national executive authority and any organ of state;
(3) Parliament had not yet put in place sufficient mechanisms and procedures to fulfil its oversight functions and to hold state departments and organs of state accountable.

The consultant submitted his final report to Parliament in July 1999. The Joint Rules Committee established an ad hoc Joint Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability and referred the consultants’ report to this committee for consideration and to make recommendations to the Joint Rules Committee on its findings.

The Joint Subcommittee engaged in a series of meetings and interviewed key Parliamentary role-players before presenting the Joint Rules Committee with its final report on 3 September 2002.

On 25 March, the Joint Rules Committee approved the recommendations contained in the Joint Subcommittee’s report and requested that an implementation plan be considered in respect of the recommendations contained in the report.

Implementation plan
On 19 August, the Joint Rules Committee considered the implementation plan, and reports as follows:
1. Implementation Mechanism
The Presiding Officers being the implementing authority of Parliament will require the assistance of a dedicated Task Team, which will be chaired/convened jointly by the Presiding Officers. The Task Team should consist of key Members who will be able to dedicate time and commit the resources of their office to the process. In this regard the following people should be considered: The Chief whips and Deputy Chief whip of the majority party or their representatives, the Chairpersons of Committees of the two Houses, two (or more) chief whips from opposition parties and six to ten other Members.
The Task Team will in turn have three components:

2. The Chair of Committees Component
This component should be chaired jointly by the Chairpersons of Committees of the two Houses. The aspects that this component will consider and report to the Task Team on will be:

(1) The drafting of the Best Practice Guide for Committees to capture inter-alia the best oversight practices of committees;
(2) Drafting guidelines for Portfolio and Select Committees to allow for Joint Planning of oversight work;
(3) Drafting protocols to ensure structured communication between committees of the two Houses;
(4) Capacity development in Select and Portfolio Committees;
(5) Developing a data compilation or record keeping system and monitoring and tracking mechanism in the committee section.

This component will require the technical assistance of and work closely with the head of the Committee Section and draw in further technical capacity from within Parliament.

3. The Budget Legislation Component
This component will be chaired jointly by the Chairpersons of the Budget Committee and should essentially develop Legislation referred to in Section 77(2) of the Constitution.

This component will conduct research and develop a draft policy in terms of S 77(2) and finally draft proposed legislation. This component will require the technical assistance of researchers and legal advisers/drafters.

4. The Projects Component
This component should be chaired by Members who are able to dedicate most of their time to the tasks allocated to this component. The tasks include:

(1) The drafting of the Constitutional "Landscape" document including commentary from key constitutional negotiators;
(2) An audit of the various bodies exercising public powers or performing public functions and the resulting delineation process;
(3) Developing a draft proposal toward a policy to be adopted in terms of section 55(2)(b)(ii) of the Constitution.

This component may also be tasked with drafting the option preferred by the JRC in regard to the Accountability Standards matter, which is referred to above.

The component will require the technical assistance of researchers/legal advisers/drafters for each of the three different projects.

5. Relationship between the three components of the Task Team
The different components will work under the auspices of and be guided by and will report to the Task Team.

Additional Members of Parliament may be drawn into each of these components depending on their needs. This will be done under the direction of the Task Team.

6. Immediately Implementable Matters
6.1 Chapter 9 Institutions
The matters regarding the resolutions on organising workshops, debates and discussions and the consultative process aimed at engaging the Institutions Supporting Democracy, are matters that the presiding officers can implement without delay.

6.2 Vision and Mission
There is already a process underway to develop a Vision and Mission Statement and this process should continue and feed into the Task Team for strategic planning and refining for adoption at the JRC.

6.3 Subcommittee on Review of Rules
There should be a rule drafted through the Joint Subcommittee on the Review of Rules to implement the resolution requiring each new Parliament to assess and review it oversight capabilities at least once during its five year life-span.

The matter of programming more oversight debates should also immediately be referred to the programme committee for implementation.

Conclusion
All of the resolutions are captured in the above proposal and for ease of reference attached please find a summary of the resolutions (Annexure 1). The one matter still outstanding relates to Accountability Standards and the JRC is yet to consider which of the two options it will adopt, or if indeed a third option should be considered.

Report to be considered.

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G N M PANDOR, MP F N GINWALA, MP
Co-Chairperson Co-Chairperson
Chairperson: NCOP Speaker: NA

ANNEXURE 1
RESOLUTIONS

Resolution
The sub-committee recommends that:
i. Parliament through the Joint Rules Committee (JRC), compiles a
document "landscaping" the Constitutional provisions dealing with the
inter-related themes of Oversight, Accountability, Transparency and
responsiveness, and outlining international trends. Such a document
should also include inputs from key constitutional negotiators either in
form of commissioned research or essays, (preferably) both.

ii. Following the tabling of the abovementioned document debates,
workshops and discussions should be programmed and organised
within Parliament, first amongst MP’s themselves, and then later on
expanded to include other stakeholders. These debates and
discussions should have as their objective the development of a broad
understanding of the Oversight Role and Purpose of Parliament within
our Constitutional democracy.

Resolution
The subcommittee recommends that:
1. Parliament commissions an audit of the various bodies exercising public powers or performing public functions and which should in addition clearly delineate which line-function departments are responsible for the various organs of state. Portfolio and select committees within Parliament will consequently assume the necessary oversight responsibility.

2. Parliament through the Joint Rules Committee develops a policy aimed at meeting its constitutional obligations set out in S55(2)(b)(ii)
2.1 Such policy should consider the necessity for basic legislation
giving effect to section 55(2) on issues of oversight and
accountability, and dealing especially with organs of state directly
accountable to Parliament.
Resolution

The sub-committee recommends that:
The JRC initiate a process aimed at drafting guidelines for portfolio and select committees to allow inter-alia for joint planning of oversight work.

A process should be initiated to establish protocols to ensure structured communication between committees through streamlining of the committee section, which would allow for more effective and formal communication between committees of both Houses that embark on mutual interest oversight work and briefing sessions.