OFFICIAL DUTIES AND DISCRECTIONARY POWERS

The government and all its officials now exercise the power of the monarch and its functions must be carried out under the authority of law. The governments official duties include; parliamentary control of the executive; ministerial responsibility

and that of parliamentary committees.

DISCRECTIONARY POWER

This power exists when a public official has a choice between possible courses of action in the course of official duty.

Discretionary power is given to public officials for the following reasons:

1 It’s useful to have subjects examined by experts.

2 Allows flexibility in making decisions where there’s rapid change.

3 Decisions can be made case by case

Welfare law provides a good example. When pensions were begun someone was needed to exercise a discretionary power to decide whether the person was entitled to benefits or not.

PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL OF THE EXECUTIVE

The formal legal provisions for controlling discretionary power fall within the area known as administrative law.

MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Certain ministers are responsible to parliament for his or her actions and those of his or her department. The department being not only ministers and senior departmental heads but every clerk and police officer as well. So if an error is found the minister controlling that department takes responsibility and often resigns from the government.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

The senate of the federal parliament sees the role of the parliamentary committees as being to ‘investigate and draw attention to what they find.’ A range of committees looks after the Senate and the senators’ interests. At various stages in these committee inquiries there is the opportunity for public hearing and callings of witnesses (senior government officials, who can be questioned about the effectiveness of proposed programs). A recent example was the inquiry by a Senate committee into the social impact of the G.S.T.