Parliamentary Committees derive their power from the Constitution of the country (Act 108 of 1996 and from the Standing Rules of the legislature. Relevant from the Constitution are the following sections:
* 114 which provides for the following powers:
* powers to consider, pass, amend or reject a bill;
* powers to initiate legislation except money bills
* openness of proceedings and facilitation of public involvement as well as ensuring that all provincial executive organs of state are accountable to the legislature
* 115 (and 39 of the Standing Rules) - empowers the committees to summon any person to appear to give information or to provide documentation
* 117 - ensures freedom of speech to members in that they cannot be prosecuted or sued for anything they say within committees. This is called parliamentary privilege. (N.B. This however does not mean that a members can speak what a member knows not to be true since the rules of procedure do not allow for a member to mislead the Legislature)
* 118 - calls on the legislature to facilitate public involvement and for openness of proceedings.
Therefore from the above one can conclude that committees are generally used for the following purposes:
* the oversight of government policies, procedures and especially financial expenditure
* domestic functions, to ease the work of the House (see Rules Committee, Disciplinary Committee, Private Members Bills, Pensions and Petitions Committee, Chairpersons of Committees; Parliamentary Executive Board)
* Examination of certain specific areas of public life or matters of current public interest
* Consideration of legislation
* exercising of monitoring an oversight role of government departments
* consideration of private members legislative proposals
N.B. Committees are provided for in the chapter dealing with Committees in the Standing Rules (Rule 25 to rule 50).
|