This study consists of the four country cases of Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and a comparative analysis which shed light on the constitutional engineering with the analytical concepts of 'power sharing' and 'accountability'. This s ...
This study consists of the four country cases of Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and a comparative analysis which shed light on the constitutional engineering with the analytical concepts of 'power sharing' and 'accountability'. This study tried to understand and explain how each Southeast Asian countries' constitutional system influenced the quality of democracy in their respective countries. Specifically, the study applied a two dimensional approach to analyze the four Southeast Asian countries' constitutional system. One aspect was to understand the norms and principles of the constitutions at the higher level of abstraction. And the other was to analyze the interrelationship between the constitution and the subordinate laws such as political party law, election law, legislative law, government organizational law, constitutional tribunal law, and commission on election law etc. Especially, this study assessed what sense and how to function the subordinate laws interacted each other in the context of democratic political development. To illuminate the political meaning of each law and to evaluate the countries’ democracy, two analytical concepts, ‘power sharing’ and ‘accountability’, were applied.
Power sharing in this study means maximization of majority, which is the definition developed by Lijphart’s school. The concept is to determine whether the power structure of a constitutional system has proper institutional arrangements to represent the majority or not. The concept of accountability in this study means to judge whether the elected government carry out its functions in the political process to meet the people’s expectation. Accountability is a necessary element for the democratic deepening and consolidation.
Thai constitutional system was studied by focusing on the 1997 and 2007 Constitution. With regard to power sharing, Thai constitutional system did not follow any specific model. The 1997 Constitution had the characteristics of majoritarian principle along with some aspects of consensual principle. It enhanced significantly the aspects of accountability compared with the previous constitutions. The institutions such as Constitutional Court, Commission on Election, Administration Court, Commission on Human Right, Ombusman, Commission on Anti-corruption, and the Measure for Anti-money Laundering were established by the 1997 Constitution. However, such empowered accountability system was often abused by the political power groups in the political process. The 2007 Constitution has the characteristics of consensual principle with some aspects of majoritarian principle. It is similar to the 1997 Constitution in terms of accountability system, which enhanced in law but abused often in practice. One of the critical reasons for the failure of the 1997 Constitution to consolidate democratic system was the political game played around the so-called network for the monarchy. The future of the Thai democratic deepening depends on the constitutional engineering in which the political environment of Thailand should be take into account, and the rules of power sharing and accountability which traditionally played around extra-Constitutional spheres should be effectively institutionalized.
The current constitution of the Philippines was established in 1987 as an outcome of the downfall of Marcos dictatorship. Upon analyzing the Constitution, the study asserts that the system of power sharing between the President and the congress in the Philippines tends to serve for negotiating political interests among the power elites rather than functioning in a constructive way. And the public accountability system is not functioning as it was designed to do. Due to the defects the Philippine democracy continuously suffers the lack of political effectiveness and stability. Despite of the problem, the reason not to break down the system would be the fact that the system served for the oligarchic power elites to circulate and recreate the political power exclusively. The direction of the Philippine constitutional engineering should be weakening the present traditional elite dominated political system, and strengthening the chances of political participation from the various classes. Some concerned people suggested the constitutional change to parliamentary system in order to strengthening party politics, and federal system to cope with the problems of regional conflicts, but such efforts failed repeatedly due to the conflict of political interests. Considering the present circumstance, it would be advisable to reform political party law and election system in the direction of strengthening political party system, and to expand the scope of local government system in the direction of devolving the centralized political power.
The present constitution of Indonesia was established as a result of 1998 democratization. Previously, there had been three Constitutions in Indonesia, the 1945 Constitution as the outcome of independence, the 1950-59 interim Constitution which prescribed the parliamentary system of government, and the 1959 Constitution which returned to the Presidential system of government by which Suharto assumed the power. The spirit of Indonesian Constitution based on the principle of national self-determination and Pancasila democracy. The characteristics of Pacasila democracy represent the most important norms in the contemporary Indonesian politics. The five principles of Pancasila democracy share the same characteristics as the Western consensus or consociational democracy. In this respect, it could be assumed that the current Indonesian Constitution includes distinctively the elements of power sharing that institutionalize the maximization of the majority. On the other hand, Indonesia has an advanced horizontal accountability system since the 1998 democratization by establishing institutions such as Ombusman, Constitutional Court, Judicial Committee, Commission on Election. However, the vertical accountability system for the elected government remain in a low level. In sum, Indonesia seems to have characteristics of power sharing system in institutional level. But even though well provided the mechanisms to check the power houses, the accountability system for the government still stay at the low level in the actual political process.
The 1957 Independent Constitution of Malaysia, so-called Merdeca Constitution, was an outcome of compromise among various ethnic groups. It played an important role of securing independence by providing the Malay as the native people with the privileged status and the non-Malay with the right of citizenship and economic freedom. As a result, power sharing is one of the most important concept to explain the process of Malaysian politics, and it practically means the sharing power among various ethnic groups. Malaysian society apparently uphold the elements of power sharing, but in practice the ethnic Malay political party, UMNO, dominates the political process, which reflect the fact that the power sharing system is operated flexibly depending on the political will, political compromise, or capricious public opinion and political dynamics. The meaning of power sharing in Malaysia is different from that of Lijphart's. The control of the ethnic and national identity problems with the non-constitutional power sharing system cannot help but meeting a certain limitation. Furthermore, these practices could have a danger to make even worse the ethnic conflicts in Malaysia.