Time has come for the civil society to identify the wrong-doers and press for suitable remedial measures. Otherwise wrong-doers will continue to multiply and bring the country to the brink of disaster. The political parties should also identify the wrong-doers and clean the party apparatus and aim at clean politics.

HUMAN beings are endowed with a heavenly trait — the Conscience and this is one of the most important gifts of Almighty God to human beings. Indeed, this gift enables the human beings to win over the evils and this makes them different from animals. Chief Justice Latifur Rahman, while talking about the accountability of the judges, very rightly said, (his delivered made In Austria was reproduced briefly in The Daily Star of April 27. 20001. "Ills’ (Judge's) first accountability is. of course, to his own conscience." It can safely be assumed that the human beings would largely be judged on the basis of tills heavenly trait on the Day of Judgement. However, the Chief Justice also added. “But that in itself is not enough, because conscience is not always invulnerable. What is also needed is accountability to the Constitution " If conscience becomes vulnerable to worldly greed and outside pressure and the human beings fail to determine the right from wrong, then they tend to assume the sub-human status. If conscience fail to guide, other considerations including the dictates of the Constitution may prove less compulsive and can hardly deter someone from doing wrong and giving wrong decisions and judgements.

H’he place of justice is a hallowed place." and the Judiciary, despite the recent inroad of the worldly evils into this hallowed place, still enjoys the respect of the people. This is why the people do turn to judiciary’ to find Justice which they fail to find somewhere else. But unfortunately here also many “right minded go away thinking that the judge is biased."

In his speech the Chief Justice himself was very critical of the judges and said. “ The Judges of the higher courts in many countries are also not above board. As a policy decision It is time to single out those corrupt judges who have not maintained the highest standards of Integrity." To earn more respect

and confidence of the people, the Chief Justice may decide to start the process of cleaning up of the houses of Justice in Bangladesh Itself. It Is "no! only the bench, but the foot places and preclnts thereof" must also be cleaned up. The present court environment and particularly that In the lower court is generally unhealthy and that needs to be addressed forthwith. The office of the Chief Justice, in such an Important drive, shall certainly need the cooperation and full support of the Bar Council and the Associations of Lawyers as these bodies know the wrongdoers who arc responsible for the present undesirable environment in some courts of the country.

The Chief Justice. In his speech, also dealt with the deterioration in other areas of the society. He said. “Our society is riven by social conflicts, turmoil and violence. Dishonesty and corruption have become all pervasive." As the overall situation stands, it seems that conscience has virtually taken leave of many who are in the helm of affair’s and this amply explains the reasons for the present poor and chaotic governance situation, endemic corruption. extreme political polarization etc. The civil service which used to keep the governance process stable and largely geared to people's welfare regardless of change of governments. has been politicised by the successive governments. Military’ which must be kept above and out of politics has also largely’ been affected. Indeed. all these have added to the deterioration in the governance process.

Democracy, established after a long fight against the military regime, could not deliver fruits to the people. The political parties have generally been observed.to be unduly impatient to dislodge the elected governments and launch political programmes which have been terribly disruptive of normal fuilc-tioning of country’s economy.

This happened before and has been happening now. Democracy seems to have very little meaning when there is practically no communication between the leaders of the ruling party and the opposition. Considerations other than people's Interest seem to inflpence and guide the decisions ol the political parties. This sort of political process does not bode well for democracy.

The elected members of the Parliament belonging to the opposition often boycott the Parliament for months thus making It a one party parliament. Then how does the democracy work ? Who takes care of the problems of the people who elect them? In order to strengthen democracy the people expect the political parties to assure the electorates in clear terms that they will not boycott the Parliament nor will they resort to the destructive Hartals. They will, however, use other democratic means to ventilate their grievances.

Though the country stands almost at the bottom in terms of economic position, it is doing extremely well in terms of corruption and It is ranking probably as No. 1 or 2 in the world map of corruption. Indeed, corruption. like a disease, has been spreading through all levels of the society — youths very much included. It is feared that a generation would be lost in the process.

Horrifying is the extent of copying in the SSC and HSC examinations. Even some parents. teachers and local political leaders are directly involved. This type of exams are meaningless’ Better course would be to abandon this type of mass exams conducted by different Boards which are often accused of corruption and poor handling of the exam affairs. Indeed, the individual schools and colleges should be given the responsibility to take the exams and award certificates. If so many universities including private universities are allowed to award degrees, then why not the schools? Once they are in

charge they will be conscious of their responsibilities. Thereafter. let the market mechanism operate and take care of the rest: Continued poor performance will wipe out the bad performers. The society itself will then act and take charge. Now they do not as the certificates are awarded by someone else — the Board which means the government. Even now the SSC and HSC certificate holders have to appear In the tests for their higher studies and for Jobs. Then why this exercise of mass exam at all?

On the Issue of bank default too we are ranking very high. Conscience has probably departed totally from there as default culture seems ever growing with the people directly involved reportedly enjoying best of everything on Almighty's earth. But at whose cost? The country suffers; the economy suffers. The assessment is that the interest rate could be lowered by about 2% if the defaulted amounts could be realised. This would have certainly boosted country's investment. Unless strong actions are taken including withdrawal of political support, the banking sector may face collapse in the near future. The development partners, international organisations like the World Bank. ADB etc have been very critical of these Issues which are bringing bad name to the country. But it needs to be pointed out that these evils are mainly hi a section of the urban society and the great majority of the people of the country are indeed the sufferers. Time has come for the civil society to Identify the wrong-doers and press for suitable remedial measures. Otherwise wrong-doers will continue to multiply and bring the country to the brink of disaster. The political parties should also identify the wrong-doers and clean the party apparatus and aim at clean politics.

The author is Chairman, of CIVIC- WATCH — Bangladesh