The enduring enigma of democracy has been about devising the optimal way to check the executive over‐reach since monarchy was replaced as the fount of both spiritual and temporal legitimacy of state power. The move from Rex Lex (King is Law), to Lex, Rex (Law is King), however, over the centuries still has not been complete, as the contemporaneous executive is still somewhat a mirror of King, albeit selected, with expansive residual power. Hence the intense jostling for executive position defining the premise of politics, even more so in transition. For who controls the executive, controls the residual power in addition to the normatively allocated power, which in any case makes the executive first among the equals—despite the doctrine of separation of power between executive, legislative and judiciary.
Thus the debate over the form of executive—Presidential or Prime Ministerial; and formation of executive—directly elected nationally, indirectly elected or appointed from legislature, still remains essentially recreating simulacrum of, what is nouveau rex (the President), or like Constitutional Monarchy, the Prime Minister governing on behalf of the President. So the pre‐occupation with various taxonomic iteration of devolved, decentralized or delegated state structure; sub‐national, local or regional governance, and more importantly, the federalism, with its renewed prominence in contemporary peacebuilding still has not resolved the quandary of executive eminence, and its tendency for over‐reach in both national and sub‐national level.
In fact the contemporary state restructuring mostly entails devising ways to delegate power from the national executive to local executives—reminiscent of King anointing local lords. Especially in identity politics, the ultimate prize of decentralization remain in being executive in the self‐governed region, and rein in the national executive; effectively evolving into simulacra of localized nouveau rex–reminiscent of tribal chieftains of non‐homogenous de facto federated states of yore.
The Attorney General and Auditor General need to be recalibrated constitutionally to elevate the positions on par with the executive, President or Prime Minister.
Thus the clamoring against unitary state appears incomplete without equally strident opposition to the unitary executive system. Just as the absolute monarchical power eventually dispersed into separate executive and legislative, and as arbiter, the judiciary; the executive with highly encompassing functioning in a contemporaneous complex society with multitudes of dynamics needs to be disaggregated. And just as there is structural inability of highly centralized state to ensure greater accessibility and participation of citizens in governance; the centralized executive tends to hinder the complete democratization of governance without effective check on its over‐reach.
Even in the United Stated, the epitome of distinctive delineation of power among the legislative, executive and judiciary with interlocking principle of checks and balance inherent in the constitution; the executive Presidency has greatly advanced and expanded commensurate to the advancement and expansion of American society. Although, the State governments in US already have very successful disaggregated executive system, exemplified most commonly by the directly elected Attorney General, independent of the State Governor. Execution of power in a multiplex world requires corresponding evolution of the office of executive. As such, there is an inherent discrepancy in the view—that the executive personified by a single official, whether President or Prime Minister, albeit as head of cabinet colleagues, is so significant as to have final authority in execution of power with far, wide and deep consequences in the lives of the entire body of citizenry and the state itself with repercussion far unto the future. If the executive happens to be of very powerful country, then the repercussion is global. It appears as retrograde, that the contemporary society, despite its multitudes of progress, is still stuck with the most rudimentary form of governance, where an executive remains more or less the doppelganger of long rejected domine deus rex.
The purported legislative control, by virtue of its very delimitation owing to the conferral and procedural, in addition to drawn out deliberations, is unable to restrain the executive, especially during crisis and transition. Further, despite the legislative control on process and method of deployment of power, the near monopoly of law‐making, and more importantly budgetary control; the executive retaining the residual power of rex has still remained unrestrainable. Similarly despite the evolution of supposed independent judiciary; the executive by virtue of its monopoly on law enforcement, most importantly the prosecutorial power, and additionally, the influence in effecting the judiciary, including appointment and emolument—has mostly warded off judicial challenge, if not neutralized it. Hence the growing trends towards prosecutorial independence in more mature democracies. Until full scope of justiciary power, including prosecutorial, is detached from the executive; the perversions of politics and the consequential subversion of justice in turn directly ensues law non‐enforcement, distortion of governance and break down in democratic practice—with the tautological loss of legitimacy of the state, its subsequent failure and emergence of active conflict only a step ahead.
However declawing the executive is incomplete without full accountability of financial appropriations imposed. Apt way to restrain a gunslinger is by controlling both manner and money. So, two AGs (the Attorney General and Auditor General), already normatively constitutional positions, need to be recalibrated constitutionally to elevate the positions on par with the executive, whatever thy name—President or Prime Minister; unbundling the executive, collectively expressed by three separate offices. Although the main executive, either President or Prime Minister still personifies the main governmental authority; the AGs with legal and financial oversight laterally ensure the most optimal constitutional functioning of the government.
The totally independent AGs with constitutionally mandated and guaranteed appointment without subordination to the executive, by broad‐based constitutional commission—where there is no monopoly of the sitting main executive—for a minimum of a single term overlapping two to three terms of the main executive would ensure impartiality and objectivity of the office. This system then can be replicated at all sub‐national levels. As the patriarchal parent has democratized into plural parents, so must the executive’s prerogative of parenspatrie.
The writer works on transitional politics
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