Saga of dysfunctional Parliaments

PROFESSOR Nizam Ahmed, a teacher of Chittagong University, has continuously been carrying out research on the functions of our Jatiya Sangsad. His latest book "The Bangladesh Parliament: A Data Handbook" is an excellent and massive research work. This timely handbook provides insights into understanding the functions of Parliament as an institution. It covers nine parliaments constituted in between the period 1973-2011.  

One may question the necessity of studying a book on the parliament's functions at a time when the country is paralysed by political turmoil. But the book will help us get to the bottom of the present crisis which has not emerged overnight. Everything may go wrong when a parliament turns into a dysfunctional institution. The political turmoil the country has been going through for more than a month has proved this once again. And when such a situation prevails, owners of the state powers find themselves helpless and powerless. Nobody including parliament cares about their anxieties.

Without any ambiguity, our constitution announces that all powers in the Republic belong to the people. And people are empowered to confer the powers to some major political institutions to exercise the powers on behalf of them. Our parliament is the top political institution. People hold the power to constitute it by electing 300 individuals through secret ballots.

Each of the MPs is supposed to represent the will of the people to transform the parliament into an embodiment of the people's will. In an idle parliamentary democracy, people seek to realise their aspirations, urges and expectations through the parliament. Parliament is also supposed to act as a forum for ventilation of the grievances of the people, their difficulties and their passions, anxieties and frustrations. Parliament is supposed to discuss various grievances, aspirations and needs of the people and make necessary moves for legislations.  But the situation in Bangladesh is opposite to the idle one. The present 10th parliament was not constituted properly. People were not allowed to exercise their right to franchise to elect their representatives. And thus the current parliament is miserably failing to deliver on people's expectations and to address the difficulties and anxieties people have been going through.

This situation has been prevailing over the years. The political culture has become confrontational due to unholy struggle for powers by the two major political parties since restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1991. And the parliament has been made worst victim of this pervasive culture, resulting in making people helpless and voiceless. If we now want to overcome the present political crisis, we need to identify first the weaknesses of our parliament and to take necessary measures to transform it into a real House of the Nation. Professor Nizam Ahmed's efforts will immensely help us as a source of numerous information to analyse the situation.

The book focuses on brief profile of MPs who were elected in previous nine parliaments since 1973. Information on their occupations and educational backgrounds show how the quality of parliament has deteriorated in the wake of alarming emergence of businessmen as legislators. The book also analyses the weaknesses in legislating process and parliamentary oversight functions. By going through the book it will be easy for one to understand how Parliament has been made a neglected institution. Through numerous data the book tells the saga of how our parliaments have been made dysfunctional.

The ugly politics to keep the parliament dysfunctional has not produced anything good for people. This has provided the government ample opportunities to emerge unchecked as an all-powerful executive by controlling the legislative powers of the state. The present political turmoil is nothing but a manifestation of deficiency of democracy and making the parliament dysfunctional.

More than 260 years ago, Charles de Montesquieu, a French political thinker, in his book "The Spirit of the Laws" says when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate may enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

So, time has come to rethink how to keep our parliament out of ugly control of the government for the sake of democracy.

The writer is senior reporter of The Daily Star