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LAW campaign

Necessity of Ombudsman to reduce corruption

Deiara Hossain
HUMAN beings cannot live alone; they have to live with others by in family, society, and state. For better discipline States or societies require law. As a developing country the socio-economic condition of Bangladesh is not well off and corruption largely accounts for that. Bangladesh even topped the corruption list prepared by Transparency International for quite a while. It
is only because bureaucratic corruption and abuse of power. Currently Government has taken the initiatives to reduce the corruption. Their foremost target is to diminish corruption in all levels, root to top. Undoubtedly this initiative is praiseworthy. This should sustain for longer period with the help of law and right institutional arrangement, otherwise the entire situation may turn into reverse position.
Even independent judiciary is not enough to prevent and rem-
edy corruption because of the complex judicial system. An effective system requires different institutional framework that will facilitate the citizens' power, especially enable them to file complaint against the bureaucratic abuse or corruption by state functionaries. All over the world this type of problem is usually resolved by establishing the office of Ombudsman. Dr. I. P. Massey termed Ombudsman as a watchdog of the administration. History says that Sweden is the first country to establish the office of Ombudsman in the year 1908, but in the parliamentary form of government New Zealand is the first country in establishing the office of Ombudsman. In 1962 the post of Ombudsman was introduced in New Zealand.
The basic idea of this body is to control and prevent the abuse of the public office or administrative authority. Ombudsman redresses individual grievance, which arises from the abuses of administrative functions. Article 77 of the Constitution of Bangladesh states that parliament may establish the office of ombudsman by enacting law. In fact a law was passed entitled the
Ombudsman Act, 1980 but unfortunately it has not yet been made effective, allegedly because of the fear that the proposed office would have the power to take action against any public officer. Generally the main functions of ombudsman are to investigate into complaints received from individuals and submit its report to the concerned authority. If left dissatisfied with the remedial measures by that authority, Ombudsman makes another special report to the President. Ombudsman is proved effective at large because it has the right to access almost every government department. The procedural part of Ombudsman's function regarding investigation is not much time-consuming. In absence of any fee or lawyer involvement, taking recourse to Ombudsman's office is a cost-fee affair. But it is to be borne in mind that the function of Ombudsman is not a replacement of rather complementary to regular court system.
Giving effect to the law of 1980 would potentially reduce corruption and will also take away some pressure from the judicial system.
The writer is working with Low Desk.