ABSTRACT
The importance of committees is underlined by Mezey: ‘Highly developed committee systems’ enable active legislatures ‘to divide the legislative labor in such a way that a degree of legislative expertise is generated in most policy areas. Such expertise is particularly important if legislators are to have an impact on policy formulation’.6 Mezey is supported by Mattson and Strøm: ‘Committees are critical to the deliberative powers of parliaments. …Strong committees, it appears, are at least a necessary condition for effective parliamentary influence in the policy-making process’.7
