Parliamentary vs. Presidential Democracies

 

Whenever a Constitution is being designed, the primary concern of the drafters is determining the structure of the nation’s new government. The question is often framed as a choice between a presidential form of government, as adopted by France and the United States, and a parliamentary form of government, as adopted by the United Kingdom and Germany. These constitutional regimes have emerged as the two primary models of democratic governmental structures.[1]

The parliamentary system involves a certain amount of merging of the executive and legislative branches of the government.[2] The presidential form of government, on the other hand, has a separate and unchanged legislature and reinforces the theory of separation of powers.[3] The most central characteristics that bring out the key differences between the two governmental regimes are the nature of the executive and the methods of selecting and removing the head of the government.

The presidential system requires the executive to be undivided, while in the parliamentary system, the executive branch is fragmented into a head of government, cabinet and a head of state.[4] In the presidential system, the executive is a unified separate entity and the president assumes both the ceremonial and representative roles of the head of government and the head of state.[5] In the parliamentary method, on the other hand, the prime minister, who is the head of the government, leads the national government assisted by a cabinet whose members govern specific areas of public importance.[6] This is then complemented by the head of the state, who is the president or a monarch. The president in a parliamentary system plays a largely ceremonial role while the prime minister holds executive power.[7]

In a presidential system, the head of the government is popularly elected – either by an electoral college system, as is present in the United States, or by the people directly.[8] On the other hand, in a parliamentarian system, the head of government is chosen by the legislature.[9] This process of selection includes election by members of parliament or selection by the majority party or a majority coalition of parties, followed by a ceremonial appointment to the position by the head of state.[10]

In a presidential system, the governmental head is elected for a fixed term of office.[11] For example, in the United States, a president serves for four years. Under normal circumstances, the president cannot be removed during his term of office except by a specially prescribed process of impeachment.[12] By contrast, in a parliamentary system, the head of government and the ministers of the country depend on the confidence of the legislature for their continuation in office[13]. Executive officials can be removed from their offices with a no-confidence vote by the legislature.[14]Additionally, a prime minister depends on the support of the majority coalition of parties in order to form a government.[15]

India and the Parliamentary System of Governance

The Constituent Assembly was committed to framing a democratic constitution for India and there was hardly any doubt that this democracy must be expressed in the institutions of direct and responsible government.[16] As the Assembly looked to the Euro-American tradition to determine which type of executive would head the newly formed government, they had three key types of executives to choose from – the American President, the Swill elected Executive and the British Prime Minister.[17] The founders rejected the Presidential system due to the possibility of conflict between an independent executive and legislature, which it did not believe India’s fledgeling democracy could manage.[18] Thus, the Assembly, noting the Indian polity’s familiarity with the British system of government and the cabinet system, chose to shape the Indian government after a slightly modified version of the British parliamentary system.[19]

[1] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[2] Analysis of political systems, Douglas V. Verney.

[3] Parliamentary versus presidential government, Gonzalo Villaita Puig, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20638116.pdf

[4] Parliamentary versus presidential government, Gonzalo Villaita Puig, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20638116.pdf

[5] Parliamentary versus presidential government, Gonzalo Villaita Puig, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20638116.pdf

[6] Parliamentary versus presidential government, Gonzalo Villaita Puig, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20638116.pdf

[7] Indian Constitutional Law, MP Jain.

[8] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[9] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600.

[10] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600.

[11] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600.

[12] I The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[13] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[14] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[15] The Presidential and Parliamentary Forms of National Government, Thomas O. Sargentich, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amuilr8&collection=journals&id=587&startid=&endid=600

[16] The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Granville Austin.

[17] The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Granville Austin.

[18] Durga Das Basu, Commentary on The Constitution of India, (8th Edition 2012, LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa, Nagpur)

[19] The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Granville Austin.