The Price of Speed: Why a Productive Parliament May Not Always Be an Accountable One
A productive Parliament sounds like a healthy Parliament.
More Bills passed.
Faster decisions.
Quicker implementation.
By almost every administrative measure, this appears to be success.
After all, citizens expect governments to solve problems, not endlessly debate them. Roads must be built, welfare schemes implemented, budgets approved and crises addressed without unnecessary delay. A Parliament that passes more legislation in less time therefore appears efficient.
Yet constitutional democracies have never been designed to maximise efficiency alone.
In fact, they deliberately tolerate a degree of institutional slowness.
That raises an uncomfortable question.
Why would a democracy willingly choose to make governing slower?
The answer lies in a distinction that is increasingly overlooked.
Parliament was never created primarily to produce laws.
It was created to produce accountability.
Lawmaking is one of its responsibilities.
Keeping power answerable is its defining purpose.
Understanding this difference is essential because much of today’s debate about Parliament begins with the wrong question.
We ask whether Parliament is productive.
The Constitution asks whether Parliament is accountable.
This article argues that the debate is not merely about parliamentary productivity. It is about a deeper constitutional shift in the very purpose Parliament is expected to serve.
Parliament exists to supervise power, not simply to exercise it
Every constitutional institution performs a different function.
The judiciary interprets the law.
The executive administers the state.
Elections decide who forms the government.
Parliament performs a different role altogether.
It ensures that those who exercise executive authority remain answerable while they continue to govern.
The Westminster constitutional tradition tells a different story.
Its central concern was never how many laws could be enacted.
Its central concern was ensuring that governments remained accountable every day they exercised power.
An executive is made answerable here and now—not merely after five years.
That single sentence explains why parliamentary democracy functions differently from systems that rely primarily on periodic elections.
Policies are framed.
Money is spent.
Rules are issued.
Authorities exercise powers continuously.
If democratic accountability depended only on elections, executive authority would effectively operate without meaningful institutional supervision for most of its term.
Parliament exists precisely to prevent that.
Its purpose is not merely to approve government decisions.
Its purpose is to question them before they become permanent exercises of public power.
Elections choose governments. Parliament continuously evaluates them.
An election answers one constitutional question.
Who should govern?
Parliament answers another.
How should those who govern remain accountable after they are elected?
This distinction forms the intellectual foundation of India’s parliamentary system.
Articles 75 and 164 establish the principle of collective responsibility, requiring the Council of Ministers to remain responsible to the elected House throughout its tenure. The constitutional idea is therefore not merely that governments must eventually face voters, but that they must continuously justify their actions while they remain in office.
This is why parliamentary democracy was designed around mechanisms that appear, at first glance, surprisingly inefficient.
Question Hour allows Members of Parliament to seek explanations directly from ministers.
Debates expose competing viewpoints before decisions acquire the force of law.
Standing Committees examine legislation clause by clause, often hearing experts and stakeholders before recommending improvements.
Budget discussions scrutinise how public money will be raised and spent.
Each of these mechanisms consumes time.
Each delays executive action.
From a purely administrative perspective, they reduce efficiency.
From a constitutional perspective, they create legitimacy.
The apparent inefficiency is therefore intentional.
Parliament was never expected to resemble an assembly line where laws move as quickly as possible from proposal to enactment.
It was designed as a constitutional checkpoint where executive authority repeatedly encounters questions before becoming law.
That distinction is crucial.
The objective is not to slow governments for the sake of delay.
It is to ensure that power explains itself before it acts.
Accountability is a constitutional resource, not an administrative obstacle
Modern governance naturally rewards speed.
Citizens judge governments by visible outcomes.
Infrastructure completed.
Schemes delivered.
Services improved.
Economic growth sustained.
Very few voters reward governments for holding longer parliamentary debates or referring more Bills to committees.
This creates a powerful administrative incentive.
Governments measure success through implementation.
The faster policies become law, the sooner implementation can begin.
From this perspective, parliamentary procedures may begin to appear as obstacles rather than safeguards.
The success of Parliament comes to be measured by the velocity of legislative output rather than the depth of deliberative scrutiny. Procedures that once embodied democratic accountability are gradually viewed as “extraneous” hurdles that slow executive action.
This changes the way Parliament itself is understood.
Instead of asking,
“Has Parliament sufficiently examined this proposal?”
the governing philosophy gradually shifts towards another question.
“How quickly can Parliament approve this proposal?”
That may appear to be a subtle difference.
In reality, it alters the constitutional relationship between Parliament and the executive.
Once speed becomes the primary measure of success, accountability itself begins to look inefficient.
And when accountability begins to resemble inefficiency, the very purpose of Parliament starts to change.
When accountability begins to look like inefficiency
Every institution is shaped by the way success is measured.
Change the measure of success, and the institution gradually changes its behaviour.
The same principle applies to Parliament.
If parliamentary success is judged by the number of Bills passed during a session, every activity that slows legislation begins to appear less valuable.
The constitutional question quietly changes.
Instead of asking,
“Has Parliament adequately examined this law?”
the focus shifts towards,
“Has Parliament passed this law quickly enough?”
The first views Parliament as an institution that disciplines executive power.
The second views Parliament as an institution that facilitates executive power.
That transformation is the real story.
Why governments naturally prefer speed
This shift should not immediately be interpreted as hostility towards democracy.
It emerges from the incentives under which every modern government operates.
Every delayed decision postpones implementation.
Every prolonged debate appears to slow delivery.
Every committee recommendation may require another round of revisions.
From an administrative perspective, faster legislation appears desirable.
Citizens often judge governments by visible achievements rather than by the number of parliamentary questions answered or committee reports produced.
Efficiency therefore becomes politically attractive.
Constitutional democracies, however, operate according to a different logic.
Administrative systems seek speed.
Constitutional systems seek legitimacy.
Administration asks whether a decision was implemented efficiently.
The Constitution asks whether the exercise of public power was sufficiently examined before becoming law.
These are related objectives.
They are not identical.
This is why democracies deliberately preserve institutions that appear inefficient from a managerial perspective.
Yet each of these procedures serves a constitutional purpose.
They compel governments to explain, justify and defend their decisions before exercising authority.
That is why accountability should never be viewed as the opposite of productivity.
It is the mechanism that determines whether productivity produces durable governance or merely rapid legislation.
The deeper constitutional insight is this: accountability functions as the quality-control mechanism of democratic lawmaking rather than an obstacle to it.
Understanding this incentive is important because constitutional institutions rarely change through sudden amendments or dramatic institutional upheavals. More often, they evolve when a new governing philosophy gradually reshapes what those institutions are expected to achieve. If efficiency becomes the primary measure of success, Parliament itself begins to be judged less by how effectively it scrutinizes power and more by how efficiently it enables governance.
The purpose of Parliament begins to change
Every constitutional system contains institutional friction.
Unlike administrative delays, this friction is intentional.
It forces power to slow down just enough to answer difficult questions before acting.
Once that friction is viewed as unnecessary, however, the institution itself begins to evolve.
Standing Committees become procedural delays rather than forums for careful examination.
Question Hour becomes an interruption to legislative business.
Extended debates become obstacles to efficiency.
The institutions themselves continue to exist.
The belief that they are necessary gradually weakens.
This process can best be understood as de-institutionalisation.
The change does not begin by abolishing constitutional institutions.
It begins by treating them as dispensable because they no longer appear essential to efficient governance. Constitutional conventions are gradually replaced by an instrumental approach in which implementation becomes the overriding objective.
This helps explain one of the most important constitutional shifts taking place.
Parliament slowly shifts from being a forum where representatives scrutinise executive power to becoming what it describes as “a convenient processing plant for the cabinet’s decisions.”
This metaphor should not be understood literally.
Parliament was never intended to process executive decisions as efficiently as possible.
It was intended to examine whether those decisions deserved to become law in the first place.
The distinction is profound.
One institution asks,
“How quickly can legislation move?”
The other asks,
“Has legislation been sufficiently examined before it moves?”
Both approaches produce laws.
Only one consistently produces accountable government.
The evidence begins to tell a larger story
If this transformation existed only in constitutional theory, it would remain an academic debate. Institutional behaviour, however, reflects the same governing philosophy. The question is therefore no longer whether parliamentary procedures are becoming faster. It is whether the evidence suggests that Parliament’s constitutional purpose is changing along with them.
The strongest evidence comes from institutions that were originally designed to slow executive decision-making in the interest of democratic scrutiny. If those institutions are gradually becoming less central to parliamentary functioning, the shift is likely to be constitutional rather than merely procedural.
Consider Parliamentary Standing Committees.
The evidence reveals a changing philosophy, not isolated procedural failures
If this were merely a story about fewer debates or fewer committee meetings, it would be a procedural concern.
But when multiple parliamentary institutions begin moving in the same direction over a sustained period, the explanation usually lies deeper than procedure.
It lies in philosophy.
If Parliament is increasingly expected to facilitate governance rather than scrutinize it, institutional changes become almost inevitable.
Committee referrals become less attractive.
Question Hour consumes valuable legislative time without producing new laws.
Extended debates postpone implementation.
The constitutional friction built into parliamentary democracy begins to appear unnecessary.
The evidence presented over the past decade points precisely towards this larger transformation.
Consider Parliamentary Standing Committees.
These committees were created to provide legislation with what might be called a constitutional “second look.”
Away from the confrontational atmosphere of the House, Members of Parliament examine Bills clause by clause, consult experts, identify drafting problems and recommend improvements before legislation is enacted.
Their purpose is not delay.
Their purpose is quality.
Yet their use has steadily declined.
During the 15th Lok Sabha, approximately 71% of Bills were referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees.
By the 17th Lok Sabha, that figure had fallen to 16%.
That statistic is significant not because committee referrals have declined.
It is significant because it reflects a changing institutional preference.
The objective appears to be passing legislation rather than improving legislation.
The same pattern emerges elsewhere.
During one parliamentary session comprising 21 sittings, the Lok Sabha functioned for only 29% of its scheduled time, while the Rajya Sabha functioned for only 34%, the lowest during the 18th Lok Sabha. At the same time, 15 Bills were passed, many receiving little or no debate. Major financial legislation, including the Union Budget, has also been approved through the guillotine procedure without discussion.
Viewed separately, each of these developments may have different immediate explanations.
Viewed together, they point towards a broader constitutional shift.
Parliamentary time is increasingly evaluated by legislative throughput rather than deliberative scrutiny.
Nor is this transformation confined to Parliament alone. State legislatures display a similar pattern. The average number of Assembly sitting days declined from 28 in 2017 to just 20 in 2024, while some large states such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh met for as few as sixteen days. The philosophy of measuring legislative success through efficiency rather than sustained scrutiny therefore appears to be spreading beyond Parliament into India’s wider legislative culture.
The erosion of daily accountability
Perhaps no parliamentary institution illustrates this transformation more clearly than Question Hour.
Question Hour was never designed to produce legislation.
Its value lies elsewhere.
It creates one of the few institutional spaces where ministers must publicly explain executive decisions before elected representatives.
It transforms executive authority into executive accountability.
Yet this mechanism too shows signs of gradual erosion.
During the same parliamentary session, no oral questions were answered on twelve days in the Rajya Sabha and seven days in the Lok Sabha. Overall, only 8% of starred questions in the Lok Sabha and 5% in the Rajya Sabha received oral replies.
From the perspective of legislative productivity, this may appear inconsequential.
But from the perspective of constitutional democracy, its importance is profound.
Every unanswered question represents one fewer opportunity for Parliament to perform the function for which it was originally designed.
This is precisely why the distinction between periodic mandates and daily accountability matters.
Elections certainly authorise governments to govern.
They do not exempt governments from explaining how they govern.
Once the latter expectation weakens, collective responsibility gradually risks becoming, in the words reflected in the constitutional debate, little more than a constitutional formality between elections. Articles 75 and 164 continue to exist, but the institutional practice through which they acquire meaning becomes progressively weaker.
The weakening of accountability is reinforced by another institutional development. The anti-defection law substantially limits the ability of legislators from the ruling party to independently question executive decisions. Even where concerns exist, party discipline often outweighs individual parliamentary scrutiny. Accountability therefore becomes weaker not only because parliamentary procedures are compressed, but also because legislators possess fewer institutional incentives to challenge the executive from within. Together, these institutional changes shift Parliament away from being a forum of continuous executive scrutiny towards one where legislative cohesion increasingly takes precedence over legislative oversight.
When institutions remain but their purpose changes
One of the most important insights emerging from this transformation is that constitutional decline rarely begins by abolishing institutions.
What changes is the purpose they are expected to serve.
Committees continue to exist.
Question Hour remains in the rulebook.
Debates still occur.
The Speaker continues to preside.
Yet if these institutions increasingly function as formalities rather than meaningful checks, Parliament begins changing without requiring any constitutional amendment.
This is why the process is often described as the “hollowing out” of Parliament.
The concern is not that democratic institutions have disappeared.
It is that the belief in their necessity is gradually disappearing.
As one description puts it,
“The House is being hollowed of meaning by the belief in the non-necessity of current institutional paraphernalia.”
That insight explains why this transformation should not be understood merely as administrative reform.
It represents a shift in constitutional imagination.
The legislature increasingly comes to be viewed not as an independent institution that questions executive authority, but as one expected to facilitate executive efficiency.
This governing philosophy is not confined to Parliament alone. It appears across debates on constitutional reform. Proposals such as One Nation, One Election are often defended in terms of administrative efficiency, reduced costs and uninterrupted governance. Critics, however, argue that they also reflect a broader constitutional preference for synchronization and executive convenience over the distinct democratic mandates that India’s federal structure was designed to preserve. Whether one supports or opposes such reforms, they illustrate a larger shift in constitutional thinking—where efficiency is presented not merely as an administrative objective, but as a constitutional value in itself.
The velocity trap
At first glance, faster lawmaking appears desirable.
Governments implement programmes more quickly.
Administrative momentum is maintained.
Policy announcements translate into legislation without prolonged delay.
Yet constitutional democracies deliberately distinguish between speed and quality.
Every complex system accepts that quality requires inspection. Manufacturers inspect products before they leave the factory. Engineers test bridges before opening them to the public. Medicines undergo clinical trials before reaching patients. No one describes these safeguards as inefficiency because they prevent much larger failures later. Parliamentary scrutiny performs the same constitutional function. It delays legislation not to obstruct governance, but to identify weaknesses before they become national problems.
A law enacted rapidly may still prove institutionally weak.
A useful analogy helps illustrate this.
Passing legislation without sufficient deliberation is like building a dam without first studying its environmental impact.
The same principle applies to legislation.
Committee scrutiny often identifies drafting flaws before implementation.
Debates expose unintended consequences before they affect millions of citizens.
Question Hour forces governments to defend assumptions before administrative decisions become permanent.
Bypassing these safeguards may save time during the legislative process.
It may also transfer those unresolved questions into the future.
This phenomenon can be described as the “velocity trap.”
When legislation moves faster than institutions can adequately examine it, constitutional disputes increasingly shift elsewhere—into prolonged litigation, public protests and demands for repeal. The absence of a meaningful “second look” ultimately creates new costs that far exceed the time originally saved.
Where does accountability go if Parliament stops providing it?
Every constitutional democracy requires an institution capable of asking difficult questions before public power becomes law.
If Parliament gradually performs less of that role, accountability does not disappear.
It migrates.
Courts increasingly decide questions that legislatures once debated.
Public protests become substitutes for parliamentary scrutiny.
Federal institutions assume responsibilities that representative institutions leave unresolved.
This possibility is already reflected in constitutional debates that view parliamentary democracy itself as part of the Constitution’s Basic Structure, making the weakening of deliberative institutions a question that extends far beyond parliamentary procedure.
Nor is the debate really about the number of Bills passed, the duration of parliamentary sessions, or the efficiency of legislative business.
The real question is what Parliament exists to produce.
If Parliament exists merely to produce laws, then debates, committees and questions naturally become expendable.
If Parliament exists to produce accountable government, those very institutions become indispensable.
Because accountability is not Parliament’s greatest obstacle to productivity.
It is the place where democratic legitimacy begins.
And if Parliament gradually stops performing that role, the question is no longer whether accountability will survive.
The real constitutional question is whether Parliament will continue to remain the institution where democratic accountability begins.