Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bicameral Parliament

Bicameral parliament is the lawmaking body of a system of a government where authority is shared between two separate houses or chambers which are the senate and house of representatives. The first or lower chamber is the House of Representatives and the second or the upper chamber is the Senate. The members from the lower chamber are elected by the people while the members of the senate are obtained through appointment, direct election, indirect election and by regional government. Bicameral parliaments are mostly found in larger countries for example Canada, United States of America, Brazil and Nigeria. Unicameral parliament is the law making body of a system of government which has one chamber or House of Representatives.

It is this organ which implements the laws passed by the legislature and the government’s policies. It is comprised of the president who is the head of the state, vice president, the prime minister who is the head of the government and the ministers. (K,K. Ghai.

Political theory and Contemporary International Relations ) Parliament exercises oversight of the executive branch to ensure that it undertakes its responsibilities in exercising various policies for the benefit of the country. Executive is responsible for the implementation of public policies through their ministries and it is required to submit an annual report to the parliament. This allows the parliament to scrutinize and observe if the executive is carrying out its duties. The vote of no confidence is one of the mechanism that the legislature uses to hold the executive more accountable effectively and efficiently. Bicameral and unicameral parliaments have functions which make the executive accountable in different ways; the following can be identified as how the unicameral parliament promotes

Also unicameral legislature consumes less time and enables quick response from the government to the people. This is because only one chamber discusses the budget and the bill of law which are to be given to the executive for implementation. Therefore the faster the parliament discusses the laws and policies the faster the executive puts it into practice for results hence efficiency is promoted and the executive becomes accountable in its duties. For example

Ghana’s unicameral parliament has three sessions without adjournment which are January to

March, may to July and October to December gives the executive enough time to implement various policies (www.parliament of gh/content/376/45). Unicameral legislature put maximum attention to the executive since legislators are more accountable to the public and their constituency because their position is a matter of public record. This means legislators are direct representatives of their constituencies since they are elected and have power to accomplish their goals, the legislators will in turn put more emphasis on how the executive exercises its obligation hence making the executive more accountable.