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A judge is not a detective
Forming a judicial inquiry commission is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. The government when grows tired of facing a public uproar following an uncontrolled and disastrous incident of gross human rights violation, enters the shelter of a judicial commission which seem like entering a safe haven. In our experience, reports generated from such commissions have always been ignored, or cared the least; none of their recommendations have ever been implemented.
From the fates of three recent such commissions, we can safely conclude that forming such commissions is part of a government's political cooling game. Once the commission submits its reports, newspapers publish parts of it out of public enthusiasm and curiosity, and then, these reports are warehoused for dusting. Someday, somewhere, some other law and order situation develops and another such commission is formed and another bulk of paper is produced. In addition to ignoring the recommendations, there is something fishy about letting a judge work as a detective. A judge is someone who studies law, who is experienced in legal proceedings, and who specialises on evaluating witness and assessing evidence to declare a judgement. A deci-
sion to assign a judge in an investigative duty, in a fact-finding mission, may indeed bring in inefficacy and inefficiency.
A judge does not fit the profile of a detec-
tive. He neither has institutional training, nor the experience to perform as an investigator. His job description never includes a police
function. But the formed commissions; judges are expected to perform beyond
their expertise.
The judge of the commission on Shamsunnahar Hall incident made strong comments on dirty teacher politics of Dhaka University and suggested ways to get rid of it. Neither the Vice Chancellor nor the Provost was punished, not even any disciplinary action was brought against any of them. Rather, one of them was later rewarded by a diplomatic assignment abroad. Nobody dared to touch the police officials involved in that midnight tragedy. Two other commissions formed on serial bomb blast incidents totally failed to dig out the facts. Those carefully planned serial blasts across the country were definitely works of extremely dangerous and clever organised groups, and for a serving or retired superior court judge, it was simply implausible to expect that he would single handedly identify the culprits and bring them to justice.
I wonder knowing these limitations why the government continues to assign judges time to time to work as detectives.
Hasanat Alamgir
Vancouver, British Columbia