Democracy: separated powers
Maldivians are tasting the first days of Democracy. Democracy came to Maldives on July 2005 under the presidency of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The main person behind Maumoon who was writing or forming this democracy was the Attorney General at that time Dr Hassan Saeed. After his resignation even though Ms Aishath Azima Shukoor was made the Attorney General this work was succeeded by Al usthaadh Mohamed Nasheed. He was made the minister of a new ministry called Legal reform ministry for this job.
Maldivians decided that Maldives will be proceeding on a presidential system of democracy on August 2007. The presidential system is known to be a system which divides the powers to three different branches. The branches are Judiciary, Legislature and Executive. I will try to explain 3 branches in a simple way. Judiciary branch is the branch where all the courts belong to or simply where judgment is done. Legislature is the branch which we normally calls parliament. Parliament is the place where they have powers to enact laws adopt the budget and adopt almost all type of bills like money bills. The executive branch is the branch of government which has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy (combined organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity).
When we talk about these powers, there are many conversations that who is having more power than other. Most people say that executive branch is the branch which lacks their ability to decide what they want. Maybe true, but who have the got the largest power? I will try to express my view and give more explanations on forthcoming articles. In my opinion these three powers are having just a limited amount of powers.
The judiciary does not put their hands on so called state administration. They are just a branch for justice. Legislature is decided by civilians. We can see what Maldivian civilians have done while deciding the parliament in 2009. Most of the time there’s no party whom are able to get the chairs they are required to decide or finish a bill. Which means the president of nation will have the power to deny the bill and according to Maldives the parliament have to win 2/3 to pass the bill if president of nation denies it. So they lack powers in these areas. The executive branch is being kept under sharp eyes of other parties and the legislature as well which keeps them so tight that they are not able to do what they want.
After all these we can say no one is having full power. But there’s someone who’s having a huge power of all, the civilians. Civilians are the one who’ll decide the parliament and the president of nation who will lead the executive branch. There the problem comes. The question is that are these civilians fully aware of these political individuals, parties and the whole politics. By having an eye on previous elections held in 2-3 years, there are areas where we can say most of the civilians are not fully aware. So, who is having this ability of awareness?
There I reach to my point. The one who is taking the responsibility of making civilians aware will be the largest power from all. The one who are taking these responsibilities are the Media. In my view there’s no other power that are having a connection that media is having to the civilians whom decides the political front runners. If media is having this power there are so many areas where they should be responsible. They are having the ability to turn the audience or civilians to different areas.
My next article under this topic “Democracy” will be specialized to this huge power, Media. Following that I will try to write articles about all the powers, political parties and front runners of politics in Maldives. I hope that readers will get at least an improvement or will get more awareness about Democracy especially in Maldives.
**I will be taking a break after this article. Readers or viewers can wait for my next article possibly after the World cup. I hope all the viewers will have great days in coming days, especially I hope all will have a good world cup. May Allah bless you all, Vassalaamu Alaikum. **
08/06/2010