The root of all our political and governance problems lies in the hasty drafting of the Constitution of our country. In 1972 November our Constitution was adopted which concludes that the most of the drafting took around 7-8 months by Dr. Kamal Hossain, an academician of law faculty of Dhaka university, which should be an impossible task for anyone to do in such short period of time. Being the Law Minister in 1972 he headed the committee for drafting the Constitution which was completely revised within 3 years by the National Assembly. Ironically, Dr. Kamal was an active member of that Assembly at the time it was being completely revised by the same Assembly which had just adopted it 3 years back. From pulp directly to the constitute questions adequate attention given to the drafting of the Constitution. Since then, our Constitution has been amended by the law experts, which neither satisfied the public nor the rulers. Major overhaul in every 5-9 years created many political crisis whereas the executive branch remains more or less the same. The general members of the public feel that the Constitution does not even ensure sovereignty of the state. Eventually, we are an unstable country, unhappy nation altogether. What is the remedy?
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Remedy to our Recurrent Political Crisis
The Remedy of our political crisis lies in a complete revision of our Constitution.
I would be happy if a national council for Constitute Reform is formed comprising of reps from all professions from our country and sit like an assembly. This small cabinet of 18 people is not enough.
The National Parliament Building is empty now. We can use this facility to hold debates and discussions to adopt the appropriate amendments to our Constitution. It looks to me that the formation of our first Constitution was wrong. Otherwise, why would the founding father (so was he called at that time) would discard it and form another within 3 years?
The legislative body of our country usually does all the changes in our Constitutional structure. Unfortunately, the MPs have little scope to initiate those. We see them, hence, discussing their local problems and petty issues in the Parliament, instead of discussing on a macro level of the national issues, since there is no lower house for the local reps in Bangladesh.
It is these MPs who hold the mandate to make amendments in the Construction. Surprisingly, we see these members remaining quiet about the necessary amendments in the National Parliament. Therefore, ironically, they sing panegyrics, dance, cry, recite poems and saga, tell stories, giggle, jest and do anything and everything inside the Parliament except initiating the steps to modernise the Constitution. However, all the bills that are drafted by the Law Commission are eventually passed by them.
The changes to the constitute, according to our country modus operandi, rather initiate at the Law Commission who actually decide the fate of our legislative corrections. So, from the birth of our nation, we have been seeing that the Constitution is the business of all lawyers, not of the political scientists.
We did not see engineers, physicians, bankers, political scientists, journalists, teachers coming to add value to the amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. Lawyers should be mere users of the laws, ought not be the sole creators of them.
We can follow a Japanese model in this regard.
Japan has got regular a legislative body and an executive body like us. But they also have many independent national councils comprising of the think tanks to assist these two bodies. Therefore, none can be autocratic. Mind you, Japan also has corruption and many political irregularities. Shinzu Abe was assassinated for some specific genuine reason. The Japanese put it under the carpet.
The Science Council of Japan (The SCJ) can be taken as a role-model for Bangladesh. It consists of 210 Council Members and some 2,000 Associate Members, elected as representatives of the approximately 870,000 scientists nationwide. The SCJ conducts activities from a universal perspective and a comprehensive and multifaceted point of view, taking advantage of the fact that The SCJ is comprised of scientists from a broad-range of fields spanning over humanities, social sciences, life sciences, natural sciences and engineering. So, for example, COVID restrictions were rather discussed in the council and then advised to the government to implement in Japan unlike our country.
You can visit their website for reference: https://www.scj.go.jp/en/scj/members.html
If you want change it must be done by us from the bottom within not some cosmetic changes on the surface. My job is to bring these references to our youngsters so that they can bring about the changes.
Md. Ashequl Islam
This is a timely write-up, Saif Ullah. I agree with you. As time passes, we really need to review our Constitution very minutely and take steps. The nation is struggling even after 53 years of independence. The rights of everyone should be ensured. Let everyone enjoy economic, political, and social independence. The parliamentary building should be better utilised. Representation of all important professions is needed in reforming and rewriting the Constitution.
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