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23 January 1995
Constitutional proposal from member of
public
Separation of posts of head of state and head of
government
This in a proposal for the consideration of the
Constitutional Assembly from a private citizen. Please forward it to the
relevant committee for consideration.
It is desirable to separate
the’post of head of state and head of government. There are two reasons
for this, one symbolic
and one practical. The symbolic reason (and not
unimportant for being symbolic) is that a president who is also a head of
government
must'necesearily be a practising politician . It in difficult for a
practising politician to unite the nation in the performance
of his or her
ceremonial duties. The possibility always.exists that such a president will
exploit his or her position as head of
state to give an unfair advantage to
his,or her own party. Even if a president does not actually exploit his or her
office for party
political benefit, he or she may,be thought to do so by others,
and that is in itself damaging. Further, the dignity that in attached
to a head
of state may be used to shield the government from criticism. This in a most
undemocratic proceeding. because the essence
of democracy, surely, in that any
goverwmnt'can legitimately be criticised. But If criticism of government in
seen as criticism
of the head of state (and therefore unpatriotic) democracy is
weakened, even endangered. It has happened before in our history that
governments have been@unable to distinguish themselves from.the state, and have
stigmatised legitimate criticism an "unpatriotic".
The separation of the post
of head of state and head of government cannot ensure that this does not happen
in future, but it will
make it less likely.
To come to the second reason, that of effi ie ncy: the
c
duties of the head of state take time away from the performnce of the
duties of the head of government. If the duties of . ither
post are to be
performed well, they must not be performed in the "pare time available from the
duties of the other post. On a related
point, it might be argued against my
proposal that the country cannot afford two salaries at this level. That would
be false economy.
One salary more or less will not get us out of our fiscal
difficulties, and the advantages to our nation's political life of-having
a
separate president and prime minister will be
considerable.
To conclude, I point out that in practice we already
have a prime.ministerial system: the president is not elected by the voters at
large, he or she is chosen by the National Assembly ' That in the essence of a
prime ministerial system, and we should not confuse
matters by calling such'an
officer a president and giving him or her duties that. he or who does not not
need, and a dignity that
he or she may not deserve. The separation of the two
,posts, I have argued, will provide benefits to the country in the long term.
A
separation will also have very advantageous short‑term benefits: we have
in Mr Mandela a man of great dignity and statesmanship,
but also a man of
advancing years. As a non‑executive head of state, Mr Mandela could play
a unifying and nation-bui.1ding
role'under the final constitution, without being
burdened by.the duties of executive office. That, I believe, in an opportunity
too good for our country to mine.
I cannot suggest in detail how
the,election of a non‑executive head of state might be carried out, but
election by the National
Assembly, or by both Houses of Parliamnt, after
consultation among all parties, by a special m&Jority of, say three fifths
(60%)
might be appropriate. Such a procedure cannot, I think, fail to secure
the election of Mr Mandela to such a post in 1999, and will
tend to encourage
the choice of more than mere party hacks in the years after that.
I urge
the Constitutional Assembly.to consider this proposal seriously.
Yours
faithfully
R. J. Thompson
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