Address at the Inauguration of the Forum on the Latimer House Principles
Date: 4 Apr 2005
Speaker: Secretary-General Don McKinnon
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
the Address
It is both a pleasure and a privilege for me to be here with you all this afternoon at the inauguration of this important Forum.
May I thank the local organising Committee for the efforts they have invested to make this Forum a success. Thank you also to those who have extended support to this conference in various ways, in particular to the UK Department for International Development for their generous financial support.
The convening of this Forum is proof, if proof were needed, that the Commonwealth is active and keen to make a contribution, in practical ways, on crucial issues of our time.
It is fitting that Kenya should host this Forum, bringing together representatives of the three branches of government from all over Africa, which accounts for 18 of the 53 members of the Commonwealth. Kenya is a country which set an example in Africa for peaceful democratic change 15 months ago and which continues to wrestle with the daunting challenges of both good governance and sustainable development.
Indeed, the two broad issues identified as Commonwealth priorities by our Heads of Government when they last met in Abuja in December 2003 were development and democracy, which they saw as closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing.
At Abuja, there was another important decision by leaders - their adoption of the Commonwealth Principles on the accountability and relationship between the three branches of government.
Our meeting today is, of course, all about exploring the inner workings of democracy and good governance, focusing on the three branches of government: the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.
From time immemorial, people have wrestled with the idea of power and how it should be exercised. Historically, some have governed in a benign and enlightened way, while others have treated countries and communities as their personal fiefdoms.
But one thing has always been clear: as the historian Lord Acton famously said, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
The hardest thing to learn, to this day, is how to share power. The challenge facing the founding fathers of the US Constitution, often recognised as a paradigm for good constitutions, was how power should be dispersed, not only among the three wings of government, but also between the centre and the states.
Democracy is all about constructive compromises, about checks and balances, about dispersing power in a way that finds the three branches of government in a state of equilibrium - this is, of course, easier said than done.
There is not a democracy in the world where there is not a certain amount of tension - and constant jostling for pre-eminence - among those three branches.
No two democracies can ever be the same. There is no one size that fits all, even if the core ingredients of democracy remain the same, principal among them being the exercise of free choice by the people of who should govern them.
Hence the multiplicity of electoral systems, types of executive authority, legislative as well as judicial arrangements that one witnesses around the world.
Democracy is therefore not a product of textbooks, or even always of logic, but of minds wrestling with ideas on how government can be representative, responsible and accountable -- and evolving constantly to fine-tune institutions and practices.
In any democracy, the role of the legislature is to make the laws by which people are governed. This is why it is so important for legislatures to be fully representative of their peoples.
The judiciary has the legitimate objective of upholding the rule of law, which causes it at times to question decisions of the legislature, usually infuriating the latter.
The executive is often all powerful and the main decision-maker on policy issues.
This is to be expected, provided those decisions are within the parameters of law and legislative mandates.
It is always a challenge to get the balance right.
We in the Commonwealth have devoted a lot of time and effort to how the three branches of government should relate to one another.
Against the background of the Commonwealth's commitment to promote good governance and the rule of law, four Commonwealth organisations: the Commonwealth Legal Educational Association; the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association; the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, developed in 1998 a set of guidelines on
Parliamentary Supremacy and Judicial Independence. They were named the Latimer House Guidelines after the London premises in which these organisations met.At their meeting in St Vincent and the Grenadines in 2002, Commonwealth Law Ministers gave detailed consideration to these Guidelines and hoped that Commonwealth Heads of Government could agree a statement of principles in this context. In response to a specific request from Law Ministers, I convened a small ministerial working group to develop such principles. The task was daunting, the time was short, but they did it.
At the Abuja CHOGM in 2003, Commonwealth leaders fully endorsed the recommendations emerging from the ministerial working group, which had in the meantime been endorsed by Law Ministers. This gave birth to the Commonwealth Principles on the Accountability of and the Relationship between the Three Branches of Government, more familiarly known as the Latimer House Principles.
It is worth highlighting the fact that the process that led to the adoption of these Principles was, as I mentioned, initiated by civil society organisation. This is another example of the way in which governments and civil society can work constructively together.
This Forum in Nairobi now seeks to give operational effect to the Latimer House Principles in Africa, an exercise we hope to repeat elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
These principles specify that each of the three branches of government must exercise responsibility and restraint in the exercise of power within its own constitutional sphere, so as not to encroach on the legitimate discharge of constitutional functions by other institutions.
This is very important, as the efficient balance of powers is at the root of any well-ordered, stable democracy. As the 18
th century French philosopher Montesquieu said: "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty."What is at stake in the relationship among the three branches of governments is not only the smooth running of government. It is also about safeguarding the rights of citizens and creating a democratic environment in which individuals can pursue their goals freely and play an active part in the future of their society.
In other words, these principles are not only about government or governance; they're about people.
Ultimately, these principles are about creating better societies, where people have confidence in the integrity of government institutions, in the lawmaking process, in the justice system.
Over the next three days, you will be deliberating on a range of important issues: how to develop a culture of ethical governance, democratic principles and practices and the rule of law, how to better promote respect among the three branches for each other's roles and functions, how to enhance judicial as well as parliamentary independence, how accountability could be promoted and corruption reduced, the role of oversight mechanisms.
Your discussions will, I hope, also focus on the gender dimension, as well as on how to draw the best out of civil society.
As the first of these regional forums, it will also provide important guidance to future forums in other regions, on the way forward in implementing these principles.
The magic of the Commonwealth, as you may already have discovered, is the ease of genuine dialogue amongst yourselves and the ability to share experience and good practice.
Most importantly, however, I hope your dialogue will lead to a concrete blueprint for action, so that the Nairobi Forum is remembered for giving true meaning to the Latimer House Principles.
I wish you success in your deliberations.
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Address at the Inauguration of the Forum on the Latimer House Principles
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