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It
is indeed a happy occasion for me to be here to present
a paper on "The Oversight Role of the Opposition in
the Committee System" drawing on the experiences of
present and past Parliaments. The purpose of the present
paper will be to show what role the opposition can play
with regard to parliamentary oversight in the Parliament
in general, and in the committee system in Parliament.
Bangladesh
in its 28 years of existence has experienced several
systems of government. It started with a parliamentary
system and then changed to presidential, and since 1975
it was under Military dictatorship combined with
presidential system with a rubber stamp type of
parliament. In 1991 Bangladesh has again changed to
parliamentary system. Presently, Bangladesh has a
Parliamentary form of government. It may be mentioned
here that although Bangladesh has a long history of
Parliament democracy and has followed the Westminster
System of government, in reality the history of
democratic practices is not that long. That is
especially because in their own interest the rulers or
the ruling parties in the past never allowed the
opposition to play its due role.
The
present Parliament that is "Bangladesh Jatiya
Sangsad" came into existence through an
unprecedented election held under a non-partisan neutral
caretaker government. Bangladesh Awami league is the
ruling party where BNP, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-Islami,
JSD are the opposition parties. The opposition parties,
particularly the main party BNP is not reconciled to the
position that they are out of power. So from the first
day they have been playing negative role as opposition.
They are not ready to accept the verdict of the people
given in the last general election accusing Awami League
of capturing the seats through rigging etc. though the
election was held under neutral Caretaker government. So
they are not
using the Parliament either for criticising the
government or overseeing the functions/ activities of
the government They mostly utilize the time and
opportunities for raising personal problems and issues
not related to the betterment of the lot of common
people or of national interest. Moreover, the problem
with the present opposition is that they have no
experience of playing the role of opposition in the
Parliament as against Awami League who have been playing
the role of the opposition for years.
Two
important things that keep the parliamentary system in
motion are the Committee system and, the constructive as
well as active opposition. The existence of the
opposition is universally acknowledged to be an
indispensable part of any democra tic society. We must
remind ourselves that our constitution does not
recognise the opposition in express term. This clearly
indicates the willingness of the framers of the
constitution to accommodate divergent opinions in our
social and political life. A Parliamentary system of
government is inconceivable without an active
opposition. Political scientists have urged long ago
that this critics are the legless creature who help
others to run. The opposition monitors the government,
criticises its policies and suggests solutions of its
own because it represent the alternative to government.
The most important instrument of the oppositions lies in
generating public debate in the course of which a
government can be called to account and alternatives
presented. Here we have before us two fundamental
functions of the opposition-remaining ever vigilant over
the policies and actions taken by the government and,
secondly, offering policy alternatives.
At
this point I should like to elaborate on the subject of
parliamentary scrutiny or oversight. The control that
Parliament exercises over the government stems from one
basic principle- Parliament embodies the will of the
people and it must therefore be able to supervise the
way in which public policy is carried out so as to
ensure that remains constant with the aspirations of the
nation as a whole. The true strength of a Parliament
lies in its ability to scrutinise the whole of the
political and administrative action of the government
and even to the point of arresting it when it no longer
corresponds to the movement of public opinion. Although
it has been often said that the domain of parliamentary
oversight belong to the opposition, the function of
oversight has become a part of parliamentary culture in
general with the treasury members actively taking part.
However, the opposition seems to be more eager in
exercising oversight at the plenary level because this
brings governmental inefficiency or malfeasance to
public light. In the plenary sessions of the Parliament
it is possible for the opposition to initiate debate,
ask questions and move adjournment motion or even motion
of no-confidence. In our Parliament the most well- known
technique through which oversight of the government is
exercised is the question period. The use of question is
extremely popular in countries like Britain, India,
Canada and Germany. The effectiveness of the question
period depends much upon the attitude of the concerned
Minister dealing with the questions. In our Parliament
all indications are that Ministers take their duty to
deal with the questions rather seriously. One of the
deficiencies of questions period is that it normally
does not provide the opportunity for prolonged debate on
the subjects raised by the questions.
Adjournment
motion is another vehicle through which opposition can
debate on policy issues. British adjournment debates are
quite frequent and provide the opposition with an
opportunity to question the merits of government
policies at length. In Lok Sobha adjournment motions
involve debates which may ultimately lead to censure of
the government. As a result, the process for admitting
them is very difficult and very few. In our system
adjournment motion is really allowed. Therefore, calling
attention notice and notice for short discussion on
matters of urgent public importance is more relied upon.
Walk
out from the house-in-session is an accepted practice in
the parliamentary democracy. But it has been observed
that instead of discussing matters of national interest
they raise personal issue and take recourse to frequent
walk-outs. They create such tense atmosphere through
provocative utterances which at times show that they
have no patience for the Speaker's ruling. It may be
mentioned here that the major opposition party had
staged a walk-out in the first hours of the first
session disregarding the ruling of the Speaker who was
elected by them. Illogical walk-outs which were started
on the first day are still continuing. Perhaps they are
forgetting that in the parliamentary system the
government is the result of cooperation between the
government and the opposition, and both have roles to
play in the running of the state. But opposition is not
only not co-operating with government, they did not even
want to reconcile to the continuance of a legally
elected government in power. As has been stated earlier
the opposition is not willing to accept the verdict of
people in favour of the Awami League to run the
government for five years. So they have now started
agitation by raising all sorts of issues which have
nothing to do with basic rights of the people or
interest of the country-domestic or international. Their
only aim is to unseat or topple the Awami League
Government by extra constitutional means i.e. through
hartals, violence, creating law and order situation,
disrupting the development activities which are going on
in the country. Hartals are accepted as recognized form
of movement in the exercise of democratic rights and
hartals have been effective weapons in the realization
of people's demands since independence. In recent
history even in the struggle for having elections under
a caretaker government hartals were used as weapons of
last resort. But the present opposition is not using it
for realizing basic rights of people. They are using it
to unseat elected Awami League Government. They are not
ready to wait for constitutional mandate i.e. that a
party voted to power will run the government for five
years. However, before expiry of that tenure the ruling
party will vacate and hand over power to a Caretaker
Government to be constituted as per provision of the
constitution. Government must be allowed to serve its
tenure of five years on the basis of verdict of the
people. Excepting for special circumstances, like the
passage of a no-- confidence motion there is no scope
for any mid-term election. Country cannot afford it and
people also need time to evaluate the performance of a
government and give their verdict in next election in
the light of that evaluation.
In
1997 a new practice was introduced in the form of Prime
Minister's question period without bringing in any
change in the Rules of Procedure. Although this has
proved to be extremely popular with the general public
but the opposition is yet to fully realize the full
potentiality in exercising oversight role. While the
Awami League was in the opposition the then ruling
party, now opposition, did not provide enough
opportunity to them to discuss issues of national and
international importance. Whenever any motion was moved
for discussion under Rules of Procedure the majority
party opposed it and discouraged such moves. To mention
an example, the incident of murder of Palestinians by an
Israeli zealot in Hebron mosque, when Awami League
wanted to pass a resolution in the floor of Parliament
condemning Israel a Minister of the Government made
disparaging remarks hurting the religious sentiment of
the Awami League members of the Parliament. There are
many such instances in the previous Parliament. In this
backdrop Awami League as majority party running the
government wanted to make the Parliament an effective
and appropriate forum for discussion of all issues of
national and international importance from the very
first day.
I
would also like to mention that opposition parties have
spurned all attempts of the government
to obtain their views while formulating the
budget. Finance Minister arranged pre-budget discussion
when all members of Parliament were invited. Opposition
members did not attend the discussion. Finance Minister
invited them separately also but they did not respond.
However, opposition get enough opportunities to ask
there views particularly on new tax proposals and
expenditure in the budget while participating in the
discussion on the budget in the budget season.
Having
a very fragmentary discussion of the role of opposition,
I would like to say few words more about the Committee
System. Committees are widely utilised in Parliamentary
system throughout the world for performing specific
tasks given by the Parliament to which a committee is a
subordinate. The sole reason why all the major
democracies have the committees as part of the
legislative system is that committees are more practical
in nature and easier to follow. The framers of our
Constitution rightly included committee as part of the
Legislature. Today we have more than 40 committees with
varying composition and functions. It may be mentioned
here that for a long time the opposition did not
co-operate with the government in forming the committees
by raising the single issue of increasing the number of
members in the committees. It has been observed that MPs
spend more time in talking about their individual
problems and party interests rather than national
interests. In order to make the parliament effective the
present government
in 1997 brought about changes in the Rules of
Procedure relating to the constitution of the
parliamentary Standing Committees for various
ministries. As per Rules of Procedure while constituting
some Committees such as Privileges Committee, Business
Advisory Committee, Public Accounts Committee inclusion
of the Leader of Opposition or his representative is
mandatory. As regards constitution of the Standing
Committee, they are constituted with the members of the
Parliament drawn from all parties as per ratio of the
seats in the Parliament. A departure has been made from
the past in respect of the Chairmanship of the
committees. A non-minister MP has been made Chairman of
the committee. This has freed the committees from
control of the Ministers of the respective Ministry. The
Chairman and members are now able to discuss any matter
related to the functioning of the Ministry without any
hindrance from Ministry. This has ensured more
accountability and transparency in the functioning of
the Government. The changes have earned prestige and
public esteem with regard to the Parliamentary form of
government as a whole. Committees have been given
detailed power to review, inquire and to examine. In
addition committees can collect evidence.
Here
I would like to make a comparison of our system with
that of the House of Commons in Britain. Our Ministerial
Standing Committee can be said to be a counterpart of
departmentally related select committees for the
monitoring of government departments. Sangsad is guided
by the Rules of Procedure and so is the conduct of the
members. From long experiences of the past certain
norms, practices, values and traditions have emerged. It
is generally expected that members of the Parliament
will be guided by these. Unfortunately, the opposition
members most of the time do not behave as is expected of
them. The Leader of the House and Prime Minister made a
categorical statement that Parliament will be the centre
of all activities of the Government and opposition will
be provided with all opportunities to play their roles
as effective and constructive opposition.
But
it appears that the opposition has become impatient for
mid-term election without any good reason whatsoever.
The major opposition party presently is following the
lead of a political party that opposed independence
struggle and which even today challenges the pro-
Liberation forces. These anti-Liberation forces don't
want political stability in the country. They want to
obstruct development and progress of the country. The
opposition is the victim of these elements
through a long term conspiratorial planning. They are
misleading the major opposition by various
conspiratorial policies. We hope the opposition will be
able to see through this conspiracy and evil motives.
The sooner they do so will be better for the country and
the people.
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