... and responsibility are owed both to the Legislature and to the various parliamentary select committees. The Separation of Powers doctrine requires the Legislature to assume the responsibility to influence, constrain, and demand justification for the actions of government and give them legitimacy2. The Legislature effects control upon Executive use of the prerogative both by the actions of members as individuals and by the actions of the Legislature as a body. Question time, early day motions, written answers to MP's questions and debate are all parliamentary procedures in which individual members of the Legislature act as "dispassionate arbiters of the national interest"3. Unfortunately, in addition to the somewhat poor level of resources provided to individual members, the capacity of a member to engage in non-partisan evaluation of the exercise of government powers can be hobbled by party politics. The electoral system allows governments to command very large majorities in the House of Commons; this, ...

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