Introduction
The 1998 Laurentian Seminar was held in Canada under the aegis of the Parliamentarian Centre, Canada in partnership with the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank and with the support from the Canadian International Development Agency. The subject matter was 'Parliament and Good Governance: the Challenge of Controlling Corruption'.
The seminar considered a number of different issues and a parliamentarian's handbook is being compiled which will be distributed world-wide. A number of very important conclusions were reached through the course of the weeklong deliberation. One of the important consensus arrived at was that lack of transparency and accountability in parliamentary proceedings negates good governance and the role of parliaments is crucial in order to bring about greater accountability and transparency. The regional chapters of Transparency International (TI) believe that the parliamentarians of South Asia will inevitably have to play a leadership role in improving the state of governance together with other actors such as the executive, judiciary, the civil society and the private sector.
It is well established that parliaments and parliamentarians have a critical role to play in good governance as elected representatives. Parliamentarians are the 'trustees' of public mandate, given periodically, and the legitimate expectation is that parliamentarians will uphold the national and public interests over other narrow and parochial interests. TI believes that one of the essential requirements for such a mature political environment to develop is that of a two-way relationship between parliamentarians and an active civil society. Mutual self respect between parliamentarians and civil society is a sine qua non to ensure transparency, accountability and participation. But the ultimate responsibility is with the parliamentarians to expose and denounce corruption, educate the public, and to ensure that civil society has the legal space in which to work effectively.
In order to start a process of dialogue and follow-up activities the TI chapters of South Asia are proposing to the Parliamentarian Centre and EDI the following prospectus:
To organise a South Asia 'Laurentian' Seminar with the following terms of reference.
Modus Operandi
Issues
Four themes are identified for evolving an effective action plan
Participants
A select group of Parliamentarians from the region will provide core participation.
Pedagogy
A blend of informed presentations (short papers authored by extremely competent resource persons detailing the crux of the problem and specific suggestions for improvement) and live cases from grassroots actions (administrative innovations and civil society initiatives) will be followed.
Outcomes