Of disbanded Senates and guilty senators

Elections to 48 or almost half of the Senate seats were held amidst rumpus and total chaos on Thursday, as stalwarts of nearly all the national political parties kept vehemently accusing each other of horse-trading and unethical vote-buying practices.
While a few Pakistani politicians were heard recommending direct election for Senate too, so that the evil of horse-trading does not raise its ugly head, others were heard demanding that Upper House of the Parliament should be disbanded forthwith as the image of some senators has tainted the entire institution.
Research shows that senators worldwide have not only been accused of financial corruption, but they have also been named in notorious vote-for-cash scams and even found guilty of displaying immoral behaviour in most cases.
However, unlike Pakistan, senators worldwide have been questioned, interrogated, censured, suspended, fined and even arrested for their wrongdoings in the past.
In neighbouring India, political scandals have kept rocking the nation since 1948- just one year after the country’s independence- when Indira Gandhi’s husband Feroze Gandhi (son-in-law of Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru), had set an example by opening a front against his father-in-law in a scam that had led to the resignation of the then Indian finance minister.
A July 2008 parliamentary investigation had probed Rajya Sabha members Amar Singh and Ahmad Patel, both of whom had been accused of offering bribes.
Investigation was also held into the activities of Senators Sanjeev Saxena, Sohail Hindustani and Sudheendra Kulkarni.
In April 2013, nine Indian Rajya Sabha (Senate) members were caught in yet another scandal involving the use of fake tickets to claim money.
Leading Indian news channel “CNN-IBN” had reported that these Rajya Sabha MPs had allegedly submitted inflated Leave Travel Concession claims. Senator Anil Kumar Sahni was allegedly the biggest offender in the scam.
In March 2011, as the “Times of India” had reported, the Indian Rajya Sabha was disrupted over a cash-for-votes scandal.
The “Times of India” had reported that in May 2012, the premises of 15 legislators were raided by 36 investigating teams in Ranchi city connection with the allegations of horse-trading that led to the cancellation of the Rajya Sabha polls.
Earlier in April 2012, the Indian sleuths had raided the premises of three Senators—Vishnu Bhaiyya, K.N. Tripathy and Suresh Paswan-and had seized a ballot box.
In 2013, two Indian Senators— Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose—were interrogated and arrested for orchestrating a 300 billion Indian Rupee Saradha Group financial scandal.
The Saradha Group, a consortium of 200 private firms, had allegedly collected around Indian Rs200 to 300 billion (US$4-6 billion) from over 1.7 million depositors, before it collapsed in April 2013
Another Rajya Sabha member Rasheed Masood was convicted for four years in an MBBS seats scam. He was also disqualified from the parliament for corruption.
Yet another Indian senator T. M. Selvaganapathy was convicted for two years and disqualified from the parliament for corruption related to a cremation-led scam.
The history of United States and its senate is full of political scams. A few are narrated for instance:
In 1989, five US Senators (Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, the famous two-time Presidential candidate John McCain and Donald Riegle) were accused of corruption in the Savings and Loan crisis.
They were accused of improperly intervening on behalf of the Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board after 23,000 bondholders said they were defrauded and deprived of their savings.
No action was taken against Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which had collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government.
It was alleged that the company had made substantial political contributions to the tune of $1.3 million to each of the senators to act as its lobbyists and advocates.
The Senate Ethics Committee had focused on all five senators and hearings had lasted for 22 months, with 9 months of active investigation and 7 weeks of hearings.
Senator Cranston had received a formal reprimand from the Senate Ethics Committee and Senators Glenn and McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticised for having exercised “poor judgement.”
However, all five senators ironically completed their term.
In Canada, a few Senators Mike Duffy, Mac Harb, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau had claimed travel and housing expenses in 2012 from the Senate for which they were not eligible.
As a result, the Auditor General of Canada began investigating the expense claims of the entire Senate. Senators Duffy, Wallin and Harb eventually had to repay the due amount.
In November 2013, Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau were suspended from the Senate without pay. The affair attracted much public attention, with as many as 73 per cent of Canadians following it closely.
In November 2014, the British police had probed members of the House of Lords after one peer, Lord Hanningfield, was found to have abused his Parliamentary expenses.
Lord Hanningfield, jailed for expenses fraud, was exposed for regularly ‘clocking in’ to the House of Lords to claim a £300 daily attendance allowance despite spending minutes inside.
In July 2013, he had claimed £5,700 using his “clock in, clock out” technique.
He was often on the parliamentary estate for less than 40 minutes on each occasion. He was also ordered to pay back £3,300 for the days we proved he carried out no parliamentary work.
Lord Hanningfield was sentenced to nine months’ jail in 2011 for fraudulently claiming for overnight stay for many days in London when he was going back home to Essex.
(Reference: The November 25, 2014 edition of the “Telegraph”)
Another British House of Lords member Jeffrey Howard Archer, was convicted and subsequently imprisoned between 2001 and 2003 for perjury and perverting the course of justice, which followed his resignation.
Archer was accused of buying a fake diploma from a US institution to get admission at the Oxford University.
He was also facing allegations that millions of pounds had disappeared from his Kurdish charity.
In July 2003, Archer was released on licence, after serving half of his sentence.
Research also shows that numerous countries have gone on to dissolve their senates owing to one reason or the other.
With years of the abolition of their senates given in brackets, some of the countries with defunct Upper Houses of Parliament include:
Greece (1863), Sudan (1958), Croatia (2001), New Zealand (1951), Denmark (1953), the Estonian Upper House (disbanded in 1940 following the Soviet invasion), Yugoslavia (the country’s Senate remained suspended between 1931 and 1941), Czechoslovakia (1939), Cuba (1958), Egypt (1952), Iraq (1959), Libya (1969), Philippines (disbanded in 1972 and restored in 1987), Ethiopia (1974), Vietnam (1975), Kenya (disbanded its Senate in 1966 and restored in 2013), Egypt (2013), Sri Lanka (1971), Greece (1935), South Africa (1981), Hungary and South Korea (1961), Peru (1992), Portugal (1976), Sweden (1970), Turkey (1980), Chad (2005), El-Salvador (1886) and Venezuela (1999) etc.
Most of these nations ultimately opted to abolish them to adopt unicameral systems.
Few of the nations mentioned above had restored their respective senates in subsequent years.
In case of Greece, its Senate was re-established in 1927 and abolished again in 1935.
In South Africa, the Senate was reconvened between 1994 and 1997, before being replaced by the National Council of Provinces.
The Philippine Senate was abolished and restored twice. The 1935 constitution had abolished the Senate, but an amendment in 1941 had restored it in 1945.
In 1972, the legislature was closed, and a passage of a new constitution in 1978 had led to the abolition of the Philippine Senate.
An approval of a new constitution in 1987 had restored the Philippines senate again.
The Kenyan Senate and House of Representatives were combined into a single National Assembly under the 2010 Constitution.
Unicameral legislatures (having just one house or legislative chamber) are also common in Communist states such as the People’s Republic of China and Cuba.
Similarly, many formerly Communist states, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Serbia, have retained their unicameral legislatures, though others like Romania and Poland had adopted bicameral legislatures.
Other countries with unicameral legislatures include Hungary, Norway, Niger, Mauritius, Malta, Iran, Iraq, Iceland, Ghana, Honduras, Guatemala, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, Ivory Coast, Nepal, Angola, Bangladesh, Botswana, Benin, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Monaco, Mongolia, Lebanon, Maldives, Lithuania, Serbia, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Tanzania and Yemen etc.
In Israel, the “The Knesset” is the legislative branch. It passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister (although the latter is ceremonially appointed by the President), approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government.
In October 2013, a constitutional referendum in the Republic of Ireland had also proposed the establishment of a unicameral system by abolishing/disbanding the “Seanad Eireann” (the Upper House of Parliament), though the proposal was narrowly rejected by a margin of 51.7 per cent against vs. 48.3 per cent in favour of the recommendation.