The current Parliament has spent only seven percent of its time in making law between the eighth and 15th session, says a report.
Published : 02 Jun 2013, 03:13 PM
The Berlin-based social watchdog Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) has found that Parliament spent an overwhelming amount of time on the President’s speech and question-answers sessions.
TIB has also called for a law to curb the 'alarming frequency of Parliament boycott' by the opposition.
“The competition seen in boycotting Parliament in recent times is indeed alarming. This has to be stopped with laws, there are no alternatives,” TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said while releasing the report at a programme in Dhaka's BRAC Inn on Sunday.
In year-by-year analysis in the latest report, TIB showed 23 percent of the 163 working days was used on budget discussions while 19 and 22 percent of the time were spent on discussion on the President’s speech and question-answer session of the Prime Minister and the other ministers.
Eleven percent of that time was spent on discussion on notices that have issues of public importance, the report says.
Shedding light on other parliamentary democracies, the report says India’s Lok Sabha and the United Kingdom’s House of Commons spent 30 and 55 percents of their total working days, respectively, on making laws.
TIB also said the BNP-led opposition boycotted proceedings for 153 of the total working days and their MPs altogether stayed away from sSix of the sessions.
According to TIB, the Jatiya Sangsad incurs a loss of at least Tk 3,558 a day for the absence of one lawmaker. So the total loss would stand at almost Tk 40 million due to sustained absence of opposition lawmakers starting from the eighth session until the 15th of the current Parliament.
“This is unprecedented in my experience of global parliamentary democracy,” said the TIB official. “At the same time, it is embarrassing and also displays lack of respect for the people who elect the lawmakers.”
Earlier in July 2009 and Jun 2011, the social watchdog produced two reports on ‘Parliament watch’.
In year-by-year analysis in the latest report, TIB showed that the opposition was present for only 23 of the 86 session-days in 2009, 21 days out of 88 in 2010, seven out of 80 days in 2011 and three out of the 83 session days of Parliament in 2012.
In previous reports, it showed that the opposition was absent 33.75 percent of the time during the fifth parliament (1991-96), 42.67 percent (1996-2001), and 59.79 percent during the current ninth parliament.
The BNP has said it will join the forthcoming parliament session that begins Monday evening.
They do not have a choice -- if they do not join, the opposition lawmakers will lose their seats.
Quorum crisis reduced
The TIB report says the number of quorum crisis in Parliament has reduced in recent times. The crisis had surfaced due to late arrival of ruling party MPs.
The last eight sessions saw 72 hours and 22 minutes of quorum crisis with an average of 24 minutes 27 seconds in each business day.
The quorum for a parliamentary sitting is the presence of at least 60 MPs.
The TIB Executive Director said Bangladesh’s parliament sits only for three hours in the afternoon whereas those in Britain and India usually sit for six hours.
‘Unparliamentary language’
TIB also demanded formulation of a code of conduct since use of ‘unparliamentary language’ by the MPs did not stop even after the Speaker’s urge and rulings.
Its report said in the last eight sessions the Speaker discharged his duties for 196 hours, the Deputy Speaker for 145 hours. The Speaker gave four rulings during this time.