New parliament's first session
THE recently concluded parliamentary session appears to be ushering parliamentary democracy into Bangladesh. The lawmakers of the ninth parliament deserve commendation for making the people hopeful about parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh again. For successful completion of the session, special thanks go to the PM and the speaker who played pivotal roles in developing a friendly atmosphere among the government and the opposition members of the parliament.
The new parliament has some special features. Firstly, it consists of elected members who were elected through delayed election. Secondly, for the first time since independence in 1971 its members were elected in a fair, free, and credible election that no one could complain about. Thirdly, it was attended for the first time by both the major parties.
People are eagerly looking forward to a successful run of parliament because past parliaments from 1991 to 2006 could not operate properly due to bad relations between the two major political parties who appear to have become wiser and more tolerant because of their (belated) realisation that without proper parliamentary activities, the strengthening of the democratic base of a country is not possible.
The first session of the new parliament started on January 6 and continued till April 7. It ran for 92 days with 39 working days. Out of a total of 122 ordinances of the CTG, it approved 32, sent 8 of them to the permanent committee for examination, and the fate of the remaining 82 ordinances is unknown
This may be considered as weakness of the government. However, credit goes to the government for successful constitution of all 47 permanent parliamentary committees. Another striking event in the first session was that the leader of the opposition took a lot of interest in the president's speech. In the discussion on the speech 171 members (152 were from AL, 13 from JP ) of the government parties took part, apart from leaders of government and opposition parties. These may be considered as good signs for future of Bangladesh parliamentary practices.
Among the bills that were passed in the session, the Citizenship Act, Protection of Consumer Rights Act, Begum Rokeya University Act, Padma Multi-purpose Bridge (land acquisition) Program, and Criminal Procedure (amendment) Bill are worth mentioning.
There was general discussion on three subjects under parliamentary rule 147. The parliament also approved some transactions of CTG, its two budgets, along with other related matters. In fact, the parliament deserves credit for completing its responsibilities within only 39 working days.
It has to be admitted that despite various odds, the first session was completed well. This was possible due to sincere effort of the leader of the house and the speaker, because at the start of the session 17 days were wasted on solving ticklish issue of allocation of seats in the parliament. Another seriously disturbing incident was the Pilkhana carnage.
It is not correct to expect change overnight. Though we have passed through three parliaments since 1991 we are still at infancy of parliamentary democracy. We have to wait for some time more for gradual and slow change in attitude and capability of our lawmakers who will have to play much greater role in policy formulation and in facing intricate challenges in future for setting up strong parliamentary democracy.
Whatever we have gained in the first session is certainly better than any previous parliamentary session of Bangladesh. In conclusion, we may say that we see some change among major parties. They are realising the need for cooperation in pushing forward the development programs of the country. But as no mutual trust and confidence has yet been created among them, the progress is slow.
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