Working of Parliament in Bangladesh: The Case of Eighth Jatiya Sangsad K.M.Mahiuddin Asst. Professor Dept of Government & Politics Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Email: [email protected]If there is one symbol that stands for a representative system, it is certainly that of Assembly, a collegial body through which the will of all (or part) of the population is expressed. 1 In modern democracies, parliament performs significant role in legislative and overseeing process. Though Etzioni-Halvey argued that legislative initiative has passed into the hand of administration. 2 It is observed that legislators spend most of their time in improving legislative out put. Parliament through its internal devices can influence the process of policy making. Like any other democratic polities, Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad (JS) is also confined to the sense of an Assembly of the people’s representative that formulates laws, monitors government expenditure and activities. Soon after the independence of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971, presidential form of government was replaced by Westminster type of parliamentary system through a decree called Provincial Constitution of Bangladesh Order, 1972 and later adopted by the new constitution which was came into force on December 16, 1972. The constitution envisaged a Westminster style of parliamentary system reflecting the aspirations and wishes of the people. All the necessary pre-conditions of 1
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Working of Parliament in Bangladesh: The Case of Eighth Jatiya Sangsad
Like the previous fifth and seventh parliaments, business-industrial class remained the
dominant group in the eighth parliament followed by retired civil-military bureaucrats who
were mostly the businessmen and industrialists. Since 1975, successive military regimes
brought them in to political arenas. Despite the political patramonialism, massive foreign aid
also contributed to foster the growth of new business-industrialists and bureaucratic political
class.4 On the contrary the percentage of professional politicians gradually reduced in the
parliament. As such, political experiences, seniority, educational qualification of the political
party---- are not considered as important factors for electoral nomination. Political parties
prefer to recruit moneyed men (businessmen, industrialists, entrepreneur etc.), retired civil-
military bureaucrat and even mussel men rather than professional politicians. With few
exceptions, members of the trade union or interests group, employees of the private business
office, workers, student leaders are also underrepresented in the JS as a whole. A prominent
journalist of the country observed that political parties sell nominations to financially affluent
people or businessmen who are contributing huge amounts of money to get nomination
without having any political background.5 Thus, many MPs are unrepresentative of the
population.6 They hardly maintain regular interaction with their electors and less concern to
their constituency because they are busy with extra parliamentary activities to enrich
themselves, rather than parliamentary job.
Like most of the parliaments of the world, the Bangladesh parliament is also male dominated;
excluding the reserved seats only few women were elected from the general seats. Statistics
revealed that in the eighth parliamentary election 27 women candidates contested for 37
general seats and among them only six women candidates (16%) were elected for 13 general
seats, meaning 4.3 percent of the total 300 general seats.7 It has been observed that only few
women parliamentarians (11% of the total women MPs) were professional politicians, others
were mostly housewives. They entered into JS by using their social links after death of their
husband or father.8 The same is true with women members nominated for reserved seats.
Reserved seats for women had been increased from 30 to 45 seats in the eighth JS by the 14th
constitution amendment in 2006. Reserved seats remained vacant for nearly five years.
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Including the all, women members are very small group compared with their male
colleagues. As observed the women candidates by and large had to depend on their male
partner for money and support for electoral politics.9
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Table 2: Social Composition of the Members of the Jatiya Sangsad
Background Fifth JS
(%)
Seventh JS
(%)
Eighth JS
(%)
Occupational Beckground
Businessmen 53 48 57
Former Army Officers 6 6 5
Former Civil Sarvants 2 2 3
Lawyers 19 17 11
Doctors, Eng.,
Journalists
14 9 11
Politics 2 4 7
Others 4 14 6
Educational Background
Postgraduate 38 40.25 42.38
Graduate 46 45.28 47
Undergraduate 16 10.37 10
Others - 4.1 0.62
Parliamentary
Experiences
No Experience 68 40 29
Experience of one JS 17 27 28.33
Experience of two JS 7 33 27
Experience of three JS 4 - 10.33
Experience of four JS 4 - 4
Experience of five JS - - 1.33
Source: Talukder Maniruzzaman, Politics and Security of Bangladesh, Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1994, pp. 150-57, Nizam Ahmed, op cit., p.70, A S M Samsul Arefin, Election in Bangladesh (1970-2001), Dhaka: Bangladesh Research and Publications, 2003. Data on the eighth parliament is calculated by the author.
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Electoral Functions
At the first working day of the first session the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker were elected
unopposed since no other candidate took part in the election. Election procedure took only 24
minutes. Unlike the previous parliaments, opposition did not put up any candidate for the
Speaker and Deputy Speaker posts. Speaker and Deputy Speaker are supposed to perform
neutral role while presiding the House as per the constitution, rules of procedure or any
concerned law, but there were very common allegation against them to switch off their
microphone during discussion and paying more attention to the ruling party members. Thus
the opposition party walked out of the House as a mark of protest against being biased to the
ruling party. At the second session of the 7th JS, main parliamentary opposition party BNP
staged a walkout in protest of the speaker's partisan role and later they boycotted the
parliament and handed over 10-point charter demands including ensuring non-partisan role of
the speaker.10 Similar allegation against the Speakers of the fifth and eighth JSs had been
raised by the AL also. Unlike the developed democracies, Speaker and Deputy Speaker keep
their party affiliation in legislative transformation.
Next electoral function of the Jatiya Sangsad was to elect the president. Former Foreign
Minister AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury has been elected unopposed president, he was
nominated by the BNP led four party alliance. Like the election of the presiding officers, main
opposition party did not put up any candidate, saying the BNP's two-thirds majority in
parliament made any election meaningless. However, independent member Mohammad
Raushan Ali submitted the nomination paper for the post, he withdrawn his candidature two
days ahead of the election. Taking oath President told the media that he would uphold the
dignity of the post by playing a neutral role. It should be mentioned here that Prof. AQM
Badruddoza Chowdhury had reigned from the presidency on June 21, 2002. Earlier to his
resignation, BNP’s parliamentary group asked him to step down from the office. Following his
resignation, Prof. Iajuddin Ahmed took oath as the President. He was the lone candidate for
the election of the presidency after two other nominations papers of insignificant candidates
were rejected in the scrutiny by the Election Commission.11
Law Making Function
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As per the Constitution the law making power of the country is vested to the parliament.
Constitution also gives limited legislative power to the President to promulgate ordinance if
he is satisfied that circumstances exist which render immediate action necessary and he
makes necessary ordinance/s when JS is not in session or it stands dissolved, but all
ordinances shall be laid before Parliament at its first meeting following the promulgation of
the Ordinance and the ordinance only become permanent laws if JS has passed such
ordinance, unless ordinances shall be expired after thirty days as mention in the Article 93
(2). The Constitution also provides that President can not promulgate such ordinances which
can be lawfully made by an Act of Parliament and he cannot also promulgates ordinances for
altering or repealing any provision of this Constitution. President also has a another provision
to share legislative powers with the JS, a bill passed in the JS only becomes a law after the
President has assented or is deemed to have assented. Such constitutional provision imposes
some restrictions on its legislative arena.
The eighth parliament ended on October 28, 2006 with 23 sessions. During its 373 working
days, parliament enacted 185 laws, which is calculated eight bills per session. Of the total bills
passed in the eighth JS, one bill was piloted as Private Members Bill and six were ordinance-
turned bills. Large of private members bills was tabled in the House but they were dropped at
various level of legislation process. Compared with the fifth and seventh JS, low numbers of
ordinances were enacted in to law in the eighth JS. Statistics revealed that less than four per
cent of ordinance-turned bills were passed in this period while fifth JS and seventh JS passed
51.8% and 8.4% of the total bills. It has been observed that government bills that were passed
in the eighth JS were not altered or massively amended at the committee stages;
recommendations and suggestions were mostly made on linguistic problems or vagueness.
Major recommendations or amendments brought by the opposition members at the committee
stage aimed to change the government strategy were rejected by party in power with their
majority in the committee.
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Table 3: Law making in the eighth JS (Session wise)
Sessions Number of working days Number of bills passed
1st (28.10.01 - 02.12.01) 19 5
2nd (31.01.02 – 10.04.02) 19 12
3rd (04.06.02 – 15.07.02) 24 7
4th (12.09.02 – 17.09.02) 4 2
5th (14.11.02 – 27.11.02) 10 13
6th (26.01.03 – 11.03.03) 24 13
7th (08.05.03 – 13.05.03) 4 2
8th (10.06.03 – 25.07.03) 25 21
9th (11.09.03 –18.09.03) 6 3
10th (16.11.03 – 19.11.03) 4 1
11th (18.01.04 – 17.05.04) 43 14
12th (09.06.04 – 14.07.04) 25 9
13th (12.09.04 – 16.09.04) 4 0
14th (28.10.04 – 02.12.04) 11 7
15th (31.01.05 – 15.03.05) 22 13
16th (12.05.05 – 17.05.05) 4 1
17th (07.06.05 – 10.07.05) 22 5
18th (08.09.05 – 21.09.05) 9 9
19th (20.11.05 – 24.11.05) 5 0
20th (23.01.06 – 28.02.06) 20 17
21st (27.04.06 – 09.05.06) 7 3
22nd (07.06.06 – 12.07.06) 26 13
23rd (10.09.06 – 04.10.06) 18 15
Total 373 185
Source: Parliament Secretariat, Dhaka, November 2006.
Opposition members were very much critical about the ordinance-turned bills. While the
ordinance-turned bills were introduced in the House opposition members usually moved
motions for disapproval of the ordinances placed in House. But the government defeated their
motions by using their majority in the parliament.12 For example, “the Speedy Trial Tribunal-
2002” bill was ordinance-turned bill introduced in the fifth session and passed in same session
without scrutinizing by any parliamentary committee. During the placement of the bill in the
House, legislators from the opposition bench termed the bill 'objectionable and black law. It is
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observed that similar type of bills, for example ‘Anti-Terrorist Bill 1992’ and ‘Public Safety
Bill 2000’ were passed in the fifth and seventh JS respectively.
Of the total bills passed in House, 29% bills were not earlier refer to any committee, these bill
were passed between first and sixth session. After formation of ministerial standing
committees in the seventh session, bills were atomically referred to the committees. Majority
of bills passed in House were related to Ministry of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, others
were related on local government bodies, financial matters, environment, social security,
academic institutions and others. The most important bill that was passed by the eighth JS was
14th Amendment to the Constitution. With the passage of this bill, number of women seats has
been raised to 45 from 30. Other important bills passed in the eighth JS included Anti-
corruption Commission Act, Acid Control Act, Acid Prevention Control Act, Money
Laundering Act, National Muktijhoddha Council Act and Safe Blood Transfusion Act.
Overseeing the Executive
JS provided numbers of devices to oversee the executive’s activities that can be divided into
two broad categories- Individual and Collective. Adjournment motion, calling attention
motion, discussion and questions are the mode of individual mechanism and committee
system is referred as collective mechanism. Following paragraphs attempt to analyze the
individual methods used in the House.
Uses of Individual Techniques
One of the important surveillance weapons for the member of the JS is ‘adjournment motion’,
which is laid down detail in between Rules 61 and 67 of the Rules of Procedure of Parliament
of Bangladesh. According to these provisions, every member has right to make an
adjournment motion for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public
importance with the consent of the Speaker. In this period members can demand detail
explanation on specific administrative action or policy taken by the government and ministers
deliver their official statement on asking matter or issue. Available data shows that
adjournment motion has been frequently used in the post 1990s parliaments. However, rate of
accepted notice differs from one JS to another JS. Available statistics revealed that legislators
of the eighth parliament submitted 1765 notices, of them seven notices were withdrawn by the
concerned members and rest of the notices were rejected by the Speaker. While speaker
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denied holding a discussion on August 21 grenade attacks adjourning all scheduled businesses
of the House a huge chaos between the treasury and opposition bench took place in the House.
The main opposition party, AL boycotted the on going session after a stormy walkout
protesting the speaker's decision.13 In the fifth JS, 1803 notices were submitted, of them only
0.2 % notices were discussed in the House, 0.1% were lapsed, 1.3% were refereed to
committees and rest of the 98.4% adjournment notices were rejected. 14 On the other hand,
members of the seventh and eighth JS could not utilize the adjournment motion. In these
periods, none of any notice was discussed in the House.
Another important device commonly used by the legislators is calling attention to matters of
urgent public importance. According to the Rule 71 of the Rules of Procedure of Bangladesh
Parliament, any member may, with the previous permission of the Speaker, call the attention
of a Minister to any matter of urgent public importance and the Minister may make a brief
statement or ask for time to make a statement at a later hour or date.15 Members of the eighth
JS were found active in using device of calling attention to matters of urgent public
importance. Out of 8521 calling attentions notices moved in the House, of them only 516
notices were accepted for discussion and finally 350 notices were discussed.
Members of the eighth JS tried to raise issues for half-an-hour discussion on a matter of public
importance subject of recent question, starred or unstarred. As per Rule 60, one or more than
one member can be tabled a notice and Speaker may allot half-an-hour on two sittings only in
a week for discussion. In the eighth JS, members tabled eight notices for half-an-hour
discussion but none of them two was finally discussed. As per Rule 68 any member with the
support of at least five other members can also submit notice for discussion on matters of
urgent public importance for short duration. But it is also observed that out of the 215 notices
only 5 notices were discussed.
Another significant and traditional device is question hour- a mechanism by which legislators
can request information from the executive leaders and call them to account on policy actions.
The practice of this device was also adopted from the British parliamentary practice.
Questions hour provides opportunity for the government member to high light government
success and opposition members can focus on the backdrops of government policies and they
can also define issues on which they disagree with the government.
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Rules of Procedure of Bangladesh JS provide specific time for asking and answering questions
for every sitting. According to Rules and Procedure, questions for oral answer shall be
distinguished by an asterisk, is called ‘Starred Question’, if the question is not distinguished
by an asterisk, it shall be treated for written answer. Every member who wishes to ask
questions has to be submitted a notice with a copy of the questions at least fifteen days before
to the secretary and it shall not be placed on the list of questions for answer until eight clear
days have expired the date of given notice from the office of parliamentary secretary to the
Minster or the member to whom it is addressed. As mentioned in the Rule 47, Speaker will
allot time for each Ministry on different days in rotation for answering the questions and one
member shall put not more than one starred and three unstarred questions for any one day
however, member may ask supplementary questions if it is necessary for the elucidation of the
answer depends upon the Speaker’s approval. Ministers are obliged to oral and written answer
to the question raising from the members but he/she unattained the questions on the name of
state security. In addition to these oral and written answered questions, member may ask a
short notice question with regards to a matter of public importance, such shall be answered on
a day or within five days from the date of notice.
Comparing with other devices, Question Hour was frequently used by the legislators both
from the treasury and opposition bench. But it is observed in the eighth JS that legislators
made irrelevant and lengthy statement while asking question and ministers were not used to
pay full attention to hear questions and even made answer with insufficient or wrong
information. Parliamentary proceedings reveal that majority questions (76.75%) were raised
from the members belonging government party while main opposition party asked only 6.67%
questions of the total.
Following the British convention, Prime Ministers Question (PMQ) time has also been
introduced from the 7th JS. In the seventh parliament, half-an-hour was reserved in every
Tuesday for asking and answering questions to the Prime Minister. But the in the eighth
parliament schedule was replaced on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. During the period of
eighth JS, the Prime Minister answered 112 main questions of them 92.9% were asked by the
government party members. In addition, a total 372 supplementary questions were answered
by the Prime Minister, of them only (22.1%) were raised by the members belonging
opposition bench.
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However, PMQ time is a significant device, most of the members of the treasury bench took
this opportunity for flattering the Prime Minister or criticizing the opposition. In the eighth
parliament, opposition members were often absent from the House during the time of PMQ.
They argued that government made discrimination while they selected the questions and
questions mostly accepted from the treasury bench. They claimed that legislators belonging
treasury bench used this device as propaganda machinery and therefore parliament could not
work as a forum for establishing the accountability and transparency of the government.16
Infact, government and opposition members both used to ask questions in a partisan manner.
1 Mény, Yves and Knapp, Andrew (1998), Government and Politics in Western Europe: Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.181.
2 Etzioni-Halvey, E (1983), Bureaucracy and Democracy, London: Routhledge and Kegan Paul.
3 Choudhury, Jamsed S.A. (2004), Bangladesh: Failure of A Parliamentary Government 1973-75, Dhaka: Pathak Shamabesh, pp. 108-121.
4
? Maniruzzaman, Talukder (1994), Politics and Security of Bangladesh, Dhaka: University Press Limited, pp. 153-54.
5 Karim, Rezaul (2004), “ Party Nomination on Sale”, The Daily Star, 13 th Anniversary issue, December, 2004.
6
? Ahmed, Nizam (2002), op cit, p.71.7
? Hassanuzaman, Al Masud and Hussain, Naseem A. (1998), Women in the Legislature in Bangladesh”, Asian Studies, No.17, p. 81.
8 Kabir, Farah, “Political participation of women in south Asia”, available at 9
? Ibid.,p. 80.
10 Hasanuzzaman, Al Masud (1998), Role of Opposition, Dhaka: University Press Limited, p. 219.
11 Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, September 7, 2002. 12
? Hasanuzzaman, Al Masud, op cit., p.161. Ahmed, Nizam, op cit., p. 86.13 The Daily Star, 15 September, 200414
? Ahmed, Nizam, op cit, pp. 112-113.
15
? Rules of Procedure of Parliament of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, available at http://www.parliamentofbangladesh.org/rprocedure.htm
16 Khan A. Moyeen (1999), “Parliamentary Oversight of the Government”, in Parliamentary Committee Systems, monograph, Dhaka: Inter Parliamentary Studies Institute and Parliament Secretariat, pp 120-121.