The Commission's Practical Functioning

In one line

The Commission's statutory equipment is the best of any group commission on this paper, and its practical functioning is limited by the same four things that limit every one of them: appointment, funding, staffing and the absence of any power to bind.

The five questions the record answers

MU asks for practical functioning, and these are the questions on which evidence exists.

Whether the Commission has been continuously constituted. Vacancies in the office of Chairperson or of Members leave a body unable to function, and section 7 provides that a vacancy does not invalidate proceedings, so nothing legal compels the filling of one. A period without a Chairperson is a period without leadership, and the annual reports show when those periods occurred.

Whether the annual report is laid on time. Section 14 requires laying as soon as may be after the reports are received and fixes no period, so the interval between the year covered and the date of laying is a measurable fact.

Whether section 16 is complied with. The duty to consult on all major policy matters affecting women is the most checkable obligation in the Act, because either the Commission was consulted on a given measure or it was not.

Whether the suo moto power is used. Clause (f) permits it, and its use is a measure of whether the Commission initiates or waits.

And whether clause (l) funding of litigation has been used. A statutory power to pay for a case affecting a large body of women is unique on this paper, and its use is the clearest evidence of the Commission acting beyond a reporting function.

A candidate who names these five and says where the evidence is has answered the practical functioning question properly, and has done so without asserting figures a paper cannot verify.

The four structural criticisms

Appointment is wholly executive. The Chairperson and every Member are nominated by the Central Government, with no selection committee, no parliamentary involvement and no published criteria beyond the fields listed in section 3(2)(b). Compare the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, whose section 4 requires a selection committee including the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Home Minister, the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States. The Women's Commission has no equivalent, and that is the sharpest available structural criticism.

Funding is by grant from the Government it scrutinises, under sections 6 and 11.

Staffing is provided by the Government, under section 5, and the Member-Secretary may be a serving civil servant who is also a Member.

And nothing it produces binds anybody.

The four fixes

A selection committee, on the model of section 4 of the 1993 Act.