Abstract
The purpose of this article is to critically examine the role of the people in the process of reviewing the implementation and effectiveness of existing laws, described in the emerging literature as ‘post-legislative scrutiny or ‘PLS’. Examining the options for citizen engagement with legislative review is critical for all parliamentary democracies grappling with the challenge of rebuilding trust between citizens and institutions. This is because reviewing the content and purpose of proposed and the implementation and impact of existing laws is a way for parliamentarians to give effect to their democratic promise. The methodology employed is qualitative in nature with a tiered approached to identifying and examining the extent to which individuals and non-government actors can contribute to parliamentary review processes in two Westminster-inspired parliamentary democracies: Australia and Malaysia. Using case study examples and examining both structural and cultural features of the systems of legislative review in both systems, this article directly challenges some of the assumptions previously associated with PLS in the existing literature. Experiences of different ‘ad hoc’ forms of PLS in both Australia and Malaysia suggest that there could be substantial benefits for lawmakers and citizens by moving toward a more deliberative, ‘bottom up’ approach to PLS in the future.
Highlights
As modern democracies grapple with the challenge of engaging voters with democratic institutions, it becomes increasingly critical to carefully examine and assess the processesYing Hooi Khoo & Sarah Moulds and practices of theses institutions and consider whether they require reform
This article has outlined an important new perspective from which to understand and evaluate the concept of post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) in two very different Westminster-based parliamentary systems. It argues that both the Malaysian and Australian systems have the capacity to move from a ‘top down’ approach to PLS, towards a more deliberative, ‘bottom up’ approach if important conceptual and practical challenges can be overcome
These challenges are more acute and broad ranging in the Malaysia context, and feature in the Australian system, and include the following:
Summary
As modern democracies grapple with the challenge of (re) engaging voters with democratic institutions, it becomes increasingly critical to carefully examine and assess the processesYing Hooi Khoo & Sarah Moulds and practices of theses institutions and consider whether they require reform. It focuses on looking for ways to expand the idea of PLS to ensure that it is more deliberative, or ‘bottom up’ in nature, and more likely to provide a meaningful link between the people and the lawmakers in the future. In undertaking this task, the authors acknowledge that they are taking a broad, inclusive approach to PLS that pulls against some of the existing literature in this area. This is deliberate, and designed to prompt scholars from other disciplines, including international studies, law and political science, to engage more directly with this concept
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