The caretaker government’s introduction of four bills in the Senate, and laying of four ordinances, provoked a ruckus in the House, as senators expressed their objections. Even if the caretaker government is able to introduce bills into the Senate, it should not do so. It is perfectly able to legislate by getting ordinances promulgated, but even laying them before the Senate is a form of introduction, and if passed, only National Assembly passage will complete the legislative process. However, by laying them in the Senate, the caretaker government is committing the future government to piloting the legislation through the Senate first. It is not necessary that the government would have a majority in the Senate. The future Parliamentary Affairs Minister may prefer to introduce a bill in the National Assembly, get it passed there, defeated in the Senate and then passed in the joint session.
By committing a future government to a particular legislative sequence, the caretakers may well decrease the chances of passage. Also, it is to be assumed that even if the ordinances introduced were urgent and necessary, the bills were not. In that case, the chances are that the bills came up because they had made it through the legislative machinery, which starts with an official having a bright idea, and goes through numerous stages before being approved by the Cabinet for introduction in Parliament, These are primarily bureaucratic, but it is primarily a political decision to introduce them. A caretaker government should be doing its best to avoid involvement, especially when it is as burdened as the present one is, with distrust about whether it will conduct its primary task, which is to conduct elections. This distrust has arisen because it has gone beyond the time limit set in the Constitution. If it had held elections within that timeframe, it would not have had to introduce any bills. The disturbing air of semi-permanence about these caretakers is enhanced rather than dispelled by these attempts to legislate. It is true that the affairs of the country are so designed that they cannot go without legislation. However, the constitutionally provided method is the promulgation of ordinances. The real problem is that the caretakers seem to have misunderstood their function. They are not a full-fledged government, but merely an interim arrangement, whose purpose is to hold elections, and handle any emergencies or cerises that might arise, not make a mark on history, whether by making reforms in a sector or piloting legislation, even if only through one House.
