The function of a legislature is not merely making of laws. What other functions are expected of a modern legislature? (1995)
Law-making names the legislature, yet a parliamentary assembly performs it least independently: the cabinet drafts, the majority ratifies. John Stuart Mill, in Considerations on Representative Government (1861), held that a numerous assembly is unfit to draft laws and that its proper office is “to watch and control the government” — to throw publicity on its acts and compel their justification. Walter Bagehot‘s The English Constitution (1867) ranked the Commons’ functions as elective, expressive, teaching and informing, placing legislation and finance after them. A modern legislature is judged by these wider roles.
Functions beyond law-making
1. Control and accountability
- Executive oversight — collective responsibility under Article 75(3) is enforced daily through Question Hour, Zero Hour (an Indian innovation), calling-attention notices, adjournment and no-confidence motions. The doomed motion of August 2023 still compelled the Prime Minister to answer on Manipur.
- Financial control — no tax without law (Art. 265) and no withdrawal without appropriation (Art. 114); demands for grants, cut motions, and ex post audit through CAG reports examined by the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the opposition since 1967.
- Committee scrutiny — 24 department-related standing committees examine bills and budgets away from the cameras.
2. Representation and legitimation
- Representative — the House mirrors society; Christophe Jaffrelot (India’s Silent Revolution, 2003) traced the entry of backward castes into northern legislatures.
- Legitimation — W. H. Morris-Jones saw the early Indian Parliament’s value less in what it enacted than in conferring legitimacy on government and schooling a new electorate in constitutional politics.
- Deliberation and informing — Bagehot’s “teaching” function: debate forces government to give reasons publicly and shapes opinion.
- Grievance redressal — Zero Hour, petitions and questions put local complaints on the national record.
3. Constitutional and quasi-judicial
- Constituent — Parliament alone initiates amendment (Art. 368); the 131st Amendment Bill’s defeat on 17 April 2026 shows the power includes refusal.
- Electoral — electing the President and Vice-President, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
- Judicial — impeachment of the President (Art. 61), removal of judges (Art. 124(4)), as in the Justice Yashwant Varma inquiry of 2025–26, and punishment for breach of privilege.
- Recruitment of leaders — ministers are drawn from and trained in the House; a recognised Leader of the Opposition, restored in 2024, is a government-in-waiting.
Expectation and performance
K. C. Wheare‘s Legislatures (1963) recorded the executive’s capture of law-making, but located the assembly’s continuing worth in criticism and control. Philip Norton‘s typology similarly treats most parliaments as policy-influencing, not policy-making. The Indian difficulty is that control itself has thinned: the 17th Lok Sabha held only 274 sittings, about 80% of its budget was voted without discussion, and in the 2026 Monsoon Session only 2 of 380 starred questions were answered orally. The functions survive in design more than in use.
Conclusion
A modern legislature is less a law factory than the forum where power is made answerable, consent is built and leaders are recruited. Its health lies in the quality of scrutiny, not the number of statutes — the function India’s Parliament most needs to recover.