I will now come to that portion of the draft which deals with minority rights. In dealing with these rights the first thing that has to be seen is reservation of seats. That is the one unique feature of the Constitution – that a minority is said to be safeguarded by means of reservation of seats, without ensuring that the minority concerned has any right or voice in determining its representative. This is meaningless and even deceptive. The only means of safeguarding minorities is by adopting the system of proportional representation. A writer in the Round Table of March 1948 referring to this system and its working in Ireland said that this solved the question of reconciling justice to minorities with the necessities of a stable Government.
