Beyond lawmaking: Strengthening legislative oversight for democratic accountability and good governance

Abstract

Legislative institutions play a critical role in democratic governance by continuously scrutinizing executive actions, overseeing public expenditures, monitoring policymaking processes, and ensuring institutional accountability and effective governance. The study focused on the role of legislative oversight in strengthening democratic accountability and good governance beyond legislation. A qualitative documentary research design was used, and 100 documents were analyzed, comprising 40 parliamentary documents, 20 reports of legislative committees and oversight, 15 budget- and audit-related documents, 10 constitutional and legislative documents, and 15 scholarly studies. Thematic and structured document analysis were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that executive scrutiny (88%) was the highest, followed by parliamentary committee scrutiny (84%), financial and audit scrutiny (79%), parliamentary questioning (76%) and policy implementation monitoring (71%). In terms of accountability results, executive answerability was 86%, transparency 82% and enhanced checks and balances 81%. Polarization among politicians (78%), restricted information availability (75%), and inadequate follow-up mechanisms (73%) were major challenges. The most prominent reform priorities were strengthening parliamentary committees (85%), improving access to government information (83%), building research and technical capacity (80%), and strengthening follow-up mechanisms (78%). The study found that parliamentary institutions needed to be strengthened to become more effective tools of democratic accountability and good governance, which required continuous scrutiny, institutional capacity, access to reliable information, responsiveness of the Executive Branch, and meaningful follow-up.