The Assembly and the Executive
by Rick Wilford
From: Aspects of the Belfast Agreement edited by Rick Wilford
Oxford University Press 2001
Committees
In addition to its more conventional legislative and scrutinising roles,
the Assembly was intended to enjoy considerable authority, notably via its
statutory committees. These committees - dubbed 'statutory' by the shadow
Committee on Standing Orders - were charged by the Agreement to 'advise
and assist' each of the departments with which they were associated ' in
the formulation of policy'. In addition, they were enabled to examine draft
legislation from their associated departments and were themselves empowered
to introduce primary legislation. Thus, law making was not vested solely
in the Executive Committee, but was shared by the statutory committees,
whose composition was broadly proportional to relative party strengths in
the Assembly. The bargain struck by the UUP and SDLP in December 1998 to
create ten departments - alongside the First and Deputy First Ministers'
Office - meant, in due course, that the parties would nominate a total of
twenty chairs and deputy chairs to these committees, again by means of d'Hondt.
In making their nominations, the parties were encouraged by the Agreement
to 'prefer Committees in which they do not have a party interest'. This
'rule' prevented the Minister and either the chair or the deputy chair of
the relevant committee from being drawn from the same party, another means
of realising the power sharing principle. A further injunction prevented
either a Minister or a Junior Minister from occupying these positions, thereby
both consolidating the distinction between legislature and executive and
cementing the planned partnership between the Assembly and the departments.
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