Prominent Jurists, lawyers and educationists at a fecture-cum-workshop said that negl! genre and defamatory activities had become part of everyday life of the citizens and urged the people tn be conscious of their rights

The speakers said the people were shy of going to courts to fight defamation suits and the courts were "conservative* as well regarding dealing with such cases

At the Second Dr Z I Chow dhury Memorial Law Lecture organised by Law Review, a university students' centre for legal research yesterday, the speakers said that the Judiciary had an Important role to enco urage people to file law suits against defamation and ncgll gence

The function presided over by President of Law Review Dr Mizanur Rahman was add re ssed. among others, by Chair man of Bangladesh Press Council Justice Sultan Hossain Khan. Supreme Court Judge A M Mahmud ur Rahman. Deputy Attorney General Hassan Artff. Supreme Court Judge Kazi Ehadul Haque. Barrister Salma Sobhan. Dr Ershadu) Bari and Nazrul Islam.

Justice Mahmudur Rahman

said that focal authority such * the DCC could be sued for keeping the covers of manholes tfprn. or not cleaning garbap-s properly He added, the police and drug administration, road transport authority or even the university could be sued for their every day negligence of duties and harassments.

Hassan Artff said that there were law of torts and de fa ma Hon suits to protect citizens constitutional rights and one could sue ihe law enforcing agrra les In case of wrongful dr tentton

He suggested that the law enforcing agencies should not be empowered to arrest a tax paying citizen without a warrant of arrest

The Deputy Attorney Genera) also suggested that hard traffic rules provide scope for whole sale corruption. "I found out most of the traffic cases war usually filed against private

Discussing on freedom of expression and law of defama tlon he pointed out that In the fields of Journalism and politics In the country, defamatory ac Uvttles were very much evident but no body normally come up against the Journalists or politicians.