Legislative committees don't just vote on bills. One of their major functions is as a quality assurance tool. In committee, legislators actually edit the text of bills.
This is commonly called "working the bill" though it may have a different name in different legislatures. Being a legislator is difficult because you will be called on to vote on significant public issues which you don't know much about.
There really is no avoiding this problem because no single person can be expected to have an in-depth understanding of all the issues a society deals with. Committees allow legislators to develop some expertise on a single set of issues.
This effect is even more important if your legislature has term limits. Legislators take time to learn how the legislature works and how their policy environment works. Committees help them learn it. Committees don't just spend time working bills and voting, they may also spend significant amounts of time hearing testimony on issues related to their bills.
Time on the floor is incredibly valuable, so without committees there would be less opportunity for debate, discussion, and testimony. In the Indian Parliamentary System, it is more or less same as Westminister type, and parliamentary committees exists for the following reasons:. Expert Presence - usually, the elected people are not technocrats, so if parliament needs technocrats for consultation on the wide fields like AI, Space, 5G then they can call subject experts and get technical nuances in framing the legislation.
Consensus reaching mechanism - The legislation presented before parliament can go for detailed scrutiny before the select committee or joint parliamentary committee , which will do a detailed analysis of the bill and come up with consensus between different political parties. Promote internal Democracy in Parties - rules like the anti-defection law doesn't kick in as there is no whip for the committee discussion and members of the committee can speak freely.
Reduces Parliament workload - The parliament setting is usually days in a year. So if each bill was framed during the normal plenary session of parliament, there would not be enough time for import business like budget presentations, votes on account, demands for grant, etc.
Legislative committees have several advantages over plenary sessions when dealing with fine-tuning legislation: first, they tend to be smaller; and second, they can work under different rules than their parent body.
Regarding the size of the committee, as I mentioned it is generally smaller but every legislative body that I know of provides for a committee of the whole which can run under committee rules, which I'll discuss next. They aren't used very often, but I mention this to show that committees can be any size that a legislative body wishes.
Committees also enjoy the ability to have more leeway regarding how they dispose of matters. For example, calling witnesses tends to be difficult in a plenary session mostly because the rooms aren't really designed for it , but committees handle this easily.
These committees also may have staff who can advise on difficult or complicated matters, which the plenary would not have easy access to.
Also, committees can travel, something that would be very difficult for a plenary body to do. Lastly, committees can't veto anything: all that they can do is present a report back to the plenary indicating whether they recommended something or not, and give reasoning and potential amendments.
It's up to the plenary to agree with them or not. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why do legislative committees exist? Ask Question. Asked 2 years, 3 months ago. Active 2 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 2k times. Improve this question. Purple P Purple P 1 1 silver badge 7 7 bronze badges.
What country are you talking about? I've not heard of a tiny subset of member having power to veto a bill. I think legislative committees exist in pretty much all parliaments, in some form or other. This question would be greatly improved by some examples to show that it's talking about a real situation or, as the case may be, allow answers to explain why you're misunderstanding the real situation.
The provision of such examples may entail replacing the general " legislatures " with a specific legislature or two. Why does any large organization create committees? Show 2 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. That is the veto power that bothers me more. After this period of growth, the committee system was streamlined and restructured with the Legislative Reorganization Acts of and , which also increased the number of subcommittees and professional staff.
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