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Laws passed, left with little review

JS bodies do not monitor poor or no enforcement of many laws; More than 1,100 laws passed in 4 decades

Shakhawat Liton
Parliamentary bodies never exercise their constitutional authority to review enforcement of laws or propose measures for their better enforcement.
Article 76 (2) (b) of the Constitution empowers the parliamentary standing
committees with sweeping authority to ensure proper enforcement of laws and prevent their misuse, according to seasoned parliamentarians.
But none of the committees have moved to exercise this power in the last four decades, although the House by this time has passed over 1,100 laws.
Common practice is that the cabinet approves draft bills or any legislative proposals, which are placed in the House as bills later for turning those into laws. After the passage of the laws, the executive branch executes them.
As the parliamentary bodies do not review law enforcement, there are some laws which are not being executed at all. The Ombudsman Act, 1980, and the Bangladesh Institute of Parliamentary Studies Act, 2000, among others, are two such laws which have never been enforced.
Similarly, there are allegations of misuse of some laws, including the much-talked-about Speedy Trial Act, Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, and Section 54 of CrPC.
Talking to The Daily Star recently, a number of parliamentary affairs experts stressed the need for using the committees' authority to ensure a proper enforcement of the laws. They said the committees could play a vital role in preventing abuse and misuse of the
laws.
"The parliamentary committees should review at least some sensitive laws which involve human rights and fundamental rights in order to monitor whether they are being enforced properly or not," said Moudud Ahmed, former law, justice and parliamentary affairs minister.
If any law is misused or abused, he said, the parliamentary bodies can send recommendations to the government to take necessary measures to prevent misuse and ensure its proper enforcement.
"Parliamentary committees in many countries do this job. We will get better results if our parliamentary bodies start reviewing the enforcement of laws," said Moudud, a veteran parliamentarian.
Echoing M ou d u d's views, Fazle Rabbi, chief of the parliamentary standing committee on law ministry, said the committees did not review enforcement of laws.
"Non-action of the committees is delaying the establishment of the rule of law," Rabbi observed.
Another former law
minister, Abdul Matin Khasru, said if the parliamentary bodies reviewed the process, enforcement of laws would be more effective. "Other authorities then will be more alert and responsible in discharging their duties," he said.
The parliamentary standing committees have also been denied their constitutional authority to determine the necessity of the laws under Article 76 (2) (a) of the Constitution.
The Constitution empowers parliamentary bodies to examine draft bills before they are placed in parliament in order to be enacted into laws, but successive governments have not followed the provision.
As a result, the bills are sent to the parliamentary standing committees for scrutiny only after they are placed in parliament. Then the House passes the bills.
The committees can do little in determining the necessity of the bills since ministers, who place the bills, obtain permission from the House to specify a timeframe for the bodies to submit scrutiny reports to parliament in order to clear the way for their passage,
parliamentary affairs expertsobserve.
Successive parliaments have passed more than 1,100 bills since 1973, but none was sent to a committee before being placed in parliament.
Despite having a large number of committees, the House cannot become a competent legislative institution in a true sense as stipulated in the Constitution.
The committee system of the Bangladesh parliament began with only 11 parliamentary bodies on ministries. The number increased trebled by after the introduction of the provision of a separate parliamentary committee on each ministry. The Bangladesh parliament currently has over 50 such bodies.
The Indian parliament has only 17 committees on ministries, which are called Departmentally Related Standing Committees. The I louse of Commons also has only 17 standing committees called Departmental Select Committees.
Each of the select committees can form only one sub-committee to perform its functions.