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The resignation tamasha

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam khaN ndc, psc (Retd)
THERE is no end of farces in Bangladesh. First we had the "talk - talk" farce, the country eagerly waiting for a long time to see as to who would call whom and when to discuss the interim government issue. And when indeed the call was made -by the prime minister to leader of the opposition - we were served up with the most insufferable 37 minutes of farce about which the less we talk the better for our progeny. So much had been spoken about the 'open doors' and 'open windows' but none of the two parties, who are responsible for the current morass the country is in, has ventured to walk through the doors.
And now we have been handed down another round of farce centering on the resignation of the ministers. And the cast in the shocking shenanigan is made up of the prime minister, the law minister, the cabinet secretary, and of course the honourable ministers of the cabinet. And to add to the confusion we have the talk show masters who betray their ignorance once they open their mouth, of course with a few honourable exceptions. Some of them were in their disingenuous best offering their own explanations about Article 58. It was extremely disheartening to hear an MP assert very forcefully that the PM is the appointing authority of ministers, basing on Article 48 (3). Those who have enacted this charade have taken the people for fools.
Technically speaking, we have a situation where the country has a prime minister but without her ministers, who had ceased to hold office the moment they had handed in their papers to the PM.
No matter what the constitutional pundits tell us, the Constitution is so clear that one doesn't have to be a constitutional expert to understand what the relevant provision of the Constitution states. Article 58 (1) (a) of the Constitution says: "The office of a Minister other than the Prime Minister shall become vacant if he resigns from office by placing his resignation in the hands of the Prime Minister for submission to the President." It can suffer no partisan explication or doctrinaire rendition from anyone, no matter what position he has held in the past or holds now.
And with all respect to the law minister, his explanation is as absurd as the charade of the resignation. He says it was only a formality, with the ministers expressing only their 'intent' of, and not really, resigning from, the cabinet. One fails to understand the need for this so called formality. Moreover, his explanation that the resignations will come
into effect once they are submitted to the president is not valid at all.
Another new phrase has been added to our constitutional lexicon, 'expressing intent.' Is there is any scope for a minister to express to the PM his or her intent to resign? If that was to be so then it could have been done in the quiet. Why all the fanfare and publicity and TV footage showing the ministers handing in his/her paper to the PM. And what should we make of the cabinet secretary's statement to the press which did indeed confirm the resignation of the ministers?
One must emphasise here the fact that it is the constitutional right of a minister to resign and the PM acts only as a 'post office' to transmit the resignation to the president. It is not for the PM to accept or reject that. A similar farce was enacted in respect of Sohel Taj who, despite his resignation, was continued to be shown as a state minister for
quite sometime.
The resignation mockery has not only violated the Gonstitution it has also denigrated the ministers and set up a dangerous precedent. After all, in a democracy the behaviour and act of the PM, ministers and MPs are based on norms an traditions that take years to build, but if such is the foundation of our parliamentary traditions then we have reasons to worry abut democracy in this country.
The government, by trying to be too clever by half, has been caught in its own snare and all sorts of explanations are being thrown around to justify what patently is an unconstitutional act. Perhaps this is the first time ever where a constitutional provision has been so grossly trampled. The prime minister's brazen disregard of the constitution more than justifies, if ever one was needed, the demand for a neutral caretaker government to run the parliamentary elections.
The writer is Editor, Op-Ed and Defense and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.