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Constitutional amendment is no more a serious job

SHAKHAWAT LITON
**The highest ever number of MPs, 327, voted for it. Three years ago, the parliament passed the 15* amendment with a margin of 291 to 1 votes. The Awami League-led government may also take credit of this if it wants to insult further those who have been opposing this amendment to the constitution.***
AMENDING the constitution by parliament is no more a serious business! The way parliament passed the 16th amendment to the constitution on Wednesday night to empower itself to remove Supreme Court judges exposed the lack of its seriousness. The House had to spend around three and a half hours to pass the bill. The time was spent to allow around two dozens of MPs to speak duringthe process to pass the bill. Many of them spoke twice. Their proposals, discussions on them and finally taking stance against their own proposals made the process farce to some extent.
So far 22 MPs belonging to Jatiya Party, the hand maiden main opposition, two components of ruling Awami League-led alliance—Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and Workers Party, Bangladesh Nationalist Front and independent camp placed various proposals. They proposed for publicising the bill soliciting the public opinion on it, sending the bill to select committee for scrutiny and for inclusion of some new provisions in the bill. While speaking on their proposals, many of them tried to defend the proposals, some
of them even spoke against own proposals. But when time came to give voice votes in favour of their proposals, they remained silent. Rather, many of them gave voice vote alongside the treasury bench members against their proposals. So, all the proposals were rejected unanimously.
More interesting, at least eight MPs exposed their callousness by proposing an unnecessary change in the bill. They proposed that the House include a provision in the bill empowering itself to make policy for the appointments of judges to the Supreme Court. Two more MPs proposed for inclusion a provision in the bill saying that this constitutional amendment will take immediate effect. Their proposals were unprecedented in nature. One other had proposed for a provision making it mandatory for an SC judge to physically present before the president to tender his resignation. Another one had proposed that a SC judge must put his/her seal on the resignation letter signed by him/her to be submitted to the president.
They placed the proposals and spoke in support of them, forcing the House to put their silly proposals on vote for disposal. But the current constitutional provision empowers parliament to
make a law to specify qualifications of individuals willing to get appointed as judges to the SC. This provision has been made a few decades ago, but the law has yet to make. When time came to defend their amendment proposals by giving voice votes, they again failed to defend their own proposals. And many of them joined the treasury bench MPs to reject the amendment proposals in voice vote. Then what's the meaning of such proposals and spending time for discussion? What happened on Wednesday has put a bizarre instance in the parliament proceedings. This will not glorify the image of those MPs who set the bizarre incident which they made only for the sake of making speeches regardless of their significance. Their parties have decided before hand to support the bill. But the instance they set will remain as an evident that the MPs do not stand by what they said.
Before the MPs made the bizarre record in the parliament proceeding on Wednesday, the cabinet itself exposed its callousness by approving the constitutional amendment bill with a preamble full of distorted facts about abolishing the parliament's power to remove Supreme Court judges. Prior to
placing the bill on parliament, the law minister had corrected some distorted facts. The parliamentary standing committee has corrected the rest of the distorted facts by rejecting the entire preamble of the bill. It had recommended that the House replace the original long preamble of the bill with one paragraph. And the House accepted it.
The government however is fortunate. All the MPs present in the House including those who placed various proposals voted for the constitutional amendment. The parliament itself may feel fortunate after getting back the authority to impeach a Supreme Court judge on grounds of misbehaviour or incapacity.
Should we now conclude that the entire nation is with the constitutional amendment as the almost full House unanimously passed the amendment bill? Going through theory, one may make such a conclusion considering the nature of the entire House's support to the bill. Not a single vote was cast against it. The highest ever number of MPs, 327, voted for it. Three years ago, the parliament passed the IS* amendment with a margin of 291 to 1 votes. The Awami League-led government may also
take credit of this if it wants to insult further those who have been opposing this amendment to the constitution.
The reality is however different to the theory. More than half of 327 MPs who voted for the amendment were not elected by people's votes. They were elected uncontested without a single vote being cast in the one-sided January 5 general election. So, those who were elected denying people's right to vote to pick their representatives can not claim themselves as true public representatives. Moreover, everyone knows about the nature of the main opposition Jatiya Party that extended wholehearted support to the amendment. The AL's main archrival BNP that enjoys support of at least 30 percent of electorates does not have representation in the current parliament as it boycotted the last election. The party has been opposing the constitutional amendment alongside some other parties, many jurists and civil society individuals. So, this amendment can not claim to have obtained strong support from people no matter how many MPs voted for passage of the bill.
The writer Is Sr. Reporter, The Dally Star.