The Speaker of each and every Parliament reserves the right for final interpretation of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament and the Constitutional provisions controlling the activities of the Parliament. His decisions or Ruling on any issue is binding and is followed by his successors. Moreover, the Rule 316 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly has the following provision: "Any matter arising in connection with the business of the House and its Committees for which no specific provision exists in these Rules shall be decided by the Speaker and his decision shall be final."

After being elected as the Speaker of the 7th National Assembly of Bangladesh I found that the Rulings of my predecessors had not been compiled and published. Whenever I asked for any Ruling of my predecessors I was told that the relevant copy of the Ruling can be obtained from the Parliament debate which took lot of time in most cases. Generally each Parliament brings out at least one compilation of Speaker’s Rulings given during his tenure. Some Parliaments make regular inclusion of the Rules enacted subsequently on the basis of Speakers’ Rulings.

In these circumstances, I ordered the collection of all the Rulings of the seven National Assemblies from 1973 to 1999 and I am happy that the relevant officials of the Parliament Secretariat have prepared the manuscripts very quickly. I sincerely thank all of them especially Law Officer Mr. Harunur Rashid for completing this arduous job. I am sure this compilation will be appreciated by the Hon'ble Members and others.