Our All-powerful PM

Photo: Star

The Constitution in Article 7(1) declares that all powers in the Republic belong to the people, and, their exercise on behalf of the people shall be effected only under, and by the authority, of this Constitution.
For proper exercise of state power, it has created three organs -- legislature, executive and judiciary. Also, it distributed the state powers among them in such a way that none can cross its own jurisdictions and none can claim supremacy over others. As per the Constitution, the supremacy belongs to only the Constitution, which is a solemn expression of the will of the people who are the owners of the country.
In accordance with the Constitution, the Republic's legislative powers are exercised by parliament, judicial power by the judiciary with the Supreme Court at its apex. But the executive power is exercised by or under the authority of the prime minister, not by the cabinet. This means in fact the cabinet is not the executive. So, the prime minister is alone the executive. Moreover, the Constitution itself empowers the prime minister to influence the functions of parliament and the judiciary. And this has given birth to an all-powerful prime minister in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh's premier is unique in terms of power. It is really difficult to find such an all-powerful PM in any other country where parliamentary democracy exists and is practised more or less. Many compare the power Bangladesh's prime minister enjoys and exercises with that which used to be exercised by Russian czars long ago. Although in Bangladesh there is no king or queen, yet unfortunately the improper distribution of the state power has given rise to a prime ministerial dictatorship, paralysing the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy.
Along with the president, the prime minister and a council of ministers, the executive branch determines the policies of the government, supervises the execution of those policies and enforcement of the laws. The prime minister is supposed to be the first among the equals in the cabinet. But the reality is different. The premier is superior to others. And not only that, other ministers in the cabinet are in fact subservient to the prime minister. The prime minister determines the number of the council of ministers and their terms also. Any of the members of the council of ministers must resign as and when the prime minister desires so.. If s/he refuses to do so, the president on advice of the prime minister will terminate his/her appointment.
And interestingly, the prime minister also exercises almost all of the powers of the president given by the Constitution. The president is the constitutional head of the state and of the executive government. He has authority to grant pardons, reprieves and respites and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority. He also makes the appointments of the prime minister, the chief justice, all ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, chief election commissioner and other election commissioners, chairman and members of the public service commission, comptroller and auditor general and attorney general. He also convenes session of parliament and can dissolve the Jatiya Sangsad at any time. The Constitution empowers him to declare the state of emergency.
But the president in reality is powerless. He has to perform and exercise all the functions and powers on the advice of the prime minister, excepting the appointment of the prime minister and the chief justice. In fact, the president has no discretionary power regarding the appointment of the prime minister as the Member of Parliament who commands support of majority in the House is constitutionally entitled to become the prime minister. What the president does in this regard is only to complete the formality. And in case of appointment of the chief justice, it is assumed the most senior judge in the Appellate Division would be appointed as the chief justice.
In accordance with the Constitution, the cabinet is collectively responsible to the parliament. This means the parliament will oversee whether the cabinet performs properly or not. Parliament is authorised to examine every action of the government. But again it is the prime minister who holds the sweeping authority to dominate the parliament's functions largely. As per the rules of procedure of (the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament), the prime minister automatically becomes the leader of the House. It is the discretion of the prime minister whether the PM will perform the functions of the leader of the House or nominate a minister to function as the leader of the House. Since restoration of the parliamentary democracy in 1991, none of the prime ministers nominated any minister to perform the function as the leader of the House.
The rules of procedure of the Jatiya Sangsad empowers the leader of the House to influence the business of parliament in many ways. The leader of the House is consulted by the Speaker to arrange government's business, and to allocate two days or an hour for a day in a week to discuss different public important issues and also to allocate time for discussion on the president's address. So whenever the leader of the House is consulted by the Speaker, s/he has a big role to play in deciding the business of the House. For instance, any discussion on public important issue can be held in parliament only if the leader of the House gives consent to such proposal. In fact, the leader of the House can gag the House from discussing public important issues. And over the past two decades since the restoration of parliamentary democracy, this is exactly what happened. The House could not hold discussion on various important issues as the leader of the House did not allow such discussions. Why didn't the leader of the House allow such discussions? Because, holding discussion means allowing MPs to criticise the government led by the prime minister for many of its actions and failures. Therefore, the leader of the House, who is also the prime minister, has been successfully gagging the House. And there are many ministers who always support the prime minister to gag the House as it provides them scope to avert parliamentary scrutiny. The situation might have been different had the prime minister not held the office of the leader of the House.
To perform its functions properly and effectively, every parliament has a committee system. Empowered by the House, two or three dozens of committees work very closely to oversee if the executive functions properly. In Bangladesh, the leader of the House enjoys absolute powers to decide who will be the chiefs and members of the committees. And there is always a tendency of the executive branch to keep the committee system dysfunctional to avert the parliamentary scrutiny.
As per the Constitution, the Republic's legislative power is vested in parliament. Unfortunately, again it is the prime minister-led cabinet that controls parliament's legislative power too. For instance, the Constitution empowers the parliamentary standing committees to examine draft bills before placing them in parliament to enact laws. But successive governments have not followed the provision. Rather, the common practice is that the cabinet approves the draft bills or any legislative proposals, which are placed in the House as bills later for turning them into laws.
The bills are sent to parliamentary standing committees for scrutiny only after they are placed in parliament. But on the functions of the committees, Article 76 (2) (a) of the Constitution says the parliamentary standing committees are to examine the draft bills and other legislative proposals. The committees can do little in determining what is necessary about the bills as ministers, who place the bills, obtain permission from the House to specify timeframe for the committees to submit scrutiny reports to parliament, clearing the way for their passage. Over the past four decades, parliaments have passed more than 1,100 bills, but none was sent to the committees before placing them in parliament.
But no government or parliament moved to enact a law for empowering the committee system despite the fact that a parliament's success largely depends on proper functioning of its committees. The Constitution says parliament may by law confer on committees appointed under this article powers for enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath, affirmation or otherwise and compelling the production of documents.
Moreover, the prime minister also enjoys legislative authority. How? The Constitution empowers the president to make laws by promulgating ordinances at any time when parliament stands dissolved or is not in session. But the president himself cannot decide the necessity of promulgation of any ordinance. Again it is the prime minister who advises the president to promulgate an ordinance.
The responsibility of seeing no functionary of the state oversteps the limits of his power lies on the judiciary. Thus judicial power is vested in the courts with the Supreme Court at the apex. Independence of the judiciary is one of the basic structures of the Constitution. But reality is quite different. Again, it is the prime minister who never allows the president to make controversy-free appointments of judges in the Supreme Court. The controversial and political appointments have largely diminished the independence of the judiciary and also tarnished its image. And the executive's interference in the functions of the lower courts cannot be described briefly. The situation in the lower courts has become worse and the mere separation of the judiciary in 2007 could not ensure its improvement.
Given the situation, it can be unequivocally claimed that the Bangladesh prime minister has become a glaring example of how powerful a prime minister can be. Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia are the two fortunate leaders who have been running the country as prime minister by turns and exercising the absolute constitutional powers over the past two decades. Along with it, they have also become supreme leaders of their respective parties -- Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).  There is little scope for practising democracy in their parties. Their wishes are their parties' decisions. None is there to question their leadership in the parties. Similarly, when either Hasina or Khaleda become the prime minister, none can question their leadership in the cabinet fearing dire consequences. Besides, a group of leaders have been developing the culture of sycophancy. They have always been lauding the top leaders, blindly. As very little democratic practice is allowed in the party, whenever either Hasina or Khaleda assume state power, none of them allow exercise of true democracy in state affairs.
Since restoration of democracy in 1990, the BNP under the leadership of Khaleda Zia won twice and she became prime minister for the same number of times. [We did not count here the February 15, 1996's farcical parliamentary polls]. Of the two, her BNP got an overwhelming majority once in 2001 national ballots. The same happened to her archrival Hasina -- simple majority in 1996 and overwhelming majority in 2008 polls.
How did they perform? They abused and misused the political mandates they were given by the people in the elections and also their constitutional absolute authorities. They have failed to deliver on people's expectations as they failed to exercise the state power on behalf of the people. They have been a failure due mainly to lack of democracy in their parties and in their activities when they are in state power. Therefore, the country could not be a democracy as per the Constitution. Autocratic rule by the prime minister cannot yield desired outcomes. Rather, the result has become cause for more frustration and people's anger against existing politics. And people, who are the owner of all the state, have finally become powerless and helpless. This cannot continue any further.  So, there is no alternative to reform. The entire system including the political mindset should be reformed. Reform is the only answer to the present crisis.

Shakhawat Liton is Senior Reporter, The Daily Star.