Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 25th September 1909 — No.14
Facts and Opinions
Presidential Autocracy
The conception of the President as a Russian autocrat and the assembly as the slave of his whims is one which is foreign to free and democratic institutions, and would, if enforced, make all true discussion impossible and put in the hands of the party in possession of the official machinery an irresistible weapon for stifling the opinions of its opponents.
It is a conception against which the Nationalist party have struggled from the beginning and will struggle to the end.
The ruling of the President is final on all points of order, but only so long as he governs the proceedings of the body according to the recognised rules of debate.
He cannot dictate the exclusion of resolutions or amendments which do not seem to him rational or expedient, but must always base his action on reasons of procedure and not on reasons of state.
The moment he asserts his individual caprice or predilection, he lays himself open to an appeal to the whole assembly or even, in very extreme cases, to an impeachment of his action by a vote of censure from the delegates.
It has been erroneously alleged that the Speaker of the House of Commons sways the House with an absolute control.
The Speaker is as much bound by the rules of the House as any member; he is the repository of the rules and administers an old and recognised procedure, elaborate and rigid in detail, which he cannot transgress, nor has any Speaker been known to transgress it.
Some have been suspected of administering the rules, wherever they left discretion to the Speaker, with a partiality for one party, but even this has been rare, and it was always the rules of procedure that were administered, not personal whim or caprice.
As the present Speaker pointed out recently in his evidence before a public Commission, there is a recognised means by which the conduct of the Speaker can be called in question by the House.
It would be strange if it were otherwise.
The framers of the British Constitution, who so jealously guarded every loophole by which autocracy might 
creep into any part of the system, were not likely to leave such a glaring defect of freedom uncorrected, if it had ever existed.