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Unit 8: Constitutional Structure: Legislature

nor can be punished for speaking or voting in the NPC or its SC. The Deputies are enjoined to live in Notes
contact with their electors and play an exemplary role in abiding by the Constitution. The voters may
exercise supervision over their elected Deputies and may recall them.
A critic may point out that the national legislature of China is neither a sovereign law-making body
like the British Parliament, nor like a non-sovereign but by no means entirely powerless Congress of
the United States. It is merely an ornamental organisation like the Supreme Soviet of the erstwhile
USSR with this line of difference that it is a uni-cameral body. The Deputies of the NPC, one may
easily understand, are the handpicked persons who assemble for a very negligible span of time just
for putting a seal of constitutional validity on the actions of the elite of the ruling party. In view of the
too unwieldy size (as consisting of 3,040 Deputies in 1980), the NPC may be said to bring representatives
from the provinces and autonomous regions into a massive display of public unity. Thus, what
Linebarger said about the NPC under the previous constitution applies even now that it is the model
of a ‘sham parliament’. Or, as a critic says, the NPC, like the earlier one, “may perform a communication
and implementation role similar to that performed by the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party.”
Self-Assessment

1. Choose the correct options:
(i) In May, ............... the Government set-up the House of Lords Appoinment Commission to
make recommendations on the appointment of non-political peers including people’s peers.
(a) 2000 (b) 2001 (c) 2003 (d) 1999

(ii) The House of Commons is the ............... chamber of the British Parliament.
(a) upper (b) lower (c) both (a) and (b) (d) None of these
(iii) Duma was produced with a pro-government majority in the election of ............... .
(a) 1999 (b) 2000 (c) 2001 (d) 2002
(iv) The British Government made a law to reduce the number of hereditary peers from 750 to 92
in. ............... .
(a) November, 1999 (b) October 1998 (c) April 1989 (d) January 1999
(v) The Parliament Act of ............... lays down that a money bill shall be initiated in the house of
commons and the Lords must pass it within a period of one month.
(a) 1912 (b) 2000 (c) 1915 (d) 1911.

8.4 Summary

• The British Parliament is a bi-cameral body having monarch and the two chambers — House of
Lords and House of Commons — respectively as the upper and the lower ones. It is, however,
important to note that the House of Lords, despite being the older chamber and one time being
the Parliament of the land, has lost its former power and glory and become hardly anything
more than a revising and delaying institution subservient to the will of the House of Commons.
• In November, 1999 the British Government made a law to reduce the number of hereditary
peers (who had the right to sit and vote in the Lords) from 750 to 92. In May, 2000 the Government
set up the House of Lords Appointment Commission to make recommendations on the
appointment of non-political peers including people’s peers. It has taken over the role previously
played by the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee.
• Some reasons are given to prove that the House of Lords should be ended as it is a political
anachronism in the country serving no useful purpose like the fifth wheel of a coach.
• It is said that its composition is thoroughly undemocratic. It consists of the peers, mostly
hereditary and life peers, who represent nobody but themselves.
• The House of Lords is a body of very rich persons and it protects their interests alone. It has
been called a citadel of wealth. Most of its members are managers and proprietors of big

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