11.5 Committee System in Legislature

The constitutional basis (Article 97): each House forms committees by law; Joint Committees for inter-house work — maximum 25 members in a 5:1 HoR:NA ratio; The standing-committee families: finance-and-audit (the Public Accounts Committee chasing the Auditor-General's reports); law-and-rights (Legislature Management; Law, Justice and Human Rights; Women and Social); government-oversight (State Affairs; Good Governance; International Relations); sectoral committees (Agriculture, Education, Health...); and the Parliamentary Hearing Committee — the constitutional appointments' vetting machinery; Functions: clause-by-clause bill scrutiny (the committee stage's real legislating); budget-and- audit oversight; inquiries with summon-and-document powers under the privileges code; the hearing function; The evaluation (honest paragraph): strengths — the numbers-to-work ratio, the consensus culture; weaknesses — staffing, research capacity, and ordinance-era bypasses. Committees are where a legislature either becomes a workplace or remains a hall.