Parliamentary Questions in Bangladesh

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Assistant Professor of Law, University of Chittagong &

PhD Candidate (Parliament Studies), King’s College London

Published in the Daily Observer, Law and Justice, July 20, 2019

Link: https://www.observerbd.com/details.php?id=208381 

Collective activities of law making, budget and committee inquiries in Westminster parliaments are dominated by government and parties. Individual MPs have tools like adjournment motions, private member resolutions, points of order, call attention notices, half-an-hour discussion and parliamentary questions. Being the most frequent part of parliamentary calendar, members’ access to the question-answer session is relatively open. Despite its theatrical tune, question constitutes the most visible accountability ritual for parliament. Bangladeshi question time unfortunately is stressed by some significant procedural, attitudinal and structural hurdles.

Parliamentary Questions are asked and answered during the first hour of every sitting day except the day of presidential speech and budget (Rule 41, Rules of Procedure). At the beginning of each session, rotation of question time for different ministries are decided by the Speaker in consultation with ministers (Rule 47). MPs submit notice of their questions at least fifteen days prior to the day assigned for the ministry concerned (Rule 42). Urgent or short notice questions are not easily entertained. The Speaker may allow it only if the minister concerned agrees. Even if the minister agrees, it would take around five sitting days to be answered (Rule 59). 

Questions are categorised either as starred questions requiring oral answer in the floor and as unstarred questions sufficing with written answers (Rule 44). Interestingly, answer to the starred questions are also printed in advance and the minister read it out orally. Once answered, the Speaker would usually allow supplementary questions by the member asking the original question and any other member Speaker chooses (Rule 56). In cases of unstarred questions printed answers are laid before the floor and there is no scope of supplementary question (Rule 51). Marked starred or unstarred at the speaker’s satisfaction, ultimate fate of a question depends greatly on the Speaker’s proactivity and the government’s willingness to face it (State of Governance in Bangladesh 2008, Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University, p 42). 

Accountability may be suppressed by spin doctoring the process in two ways. First, tabling of an oral answer, instead of reading it out, would mean that it will in effect be turned into a unstarred question. Members would be denied supplementary questions. Rate of tabling in Bangladesh is unfortunately as high as 90 percent in the third parliament. Second, ministers may effectively kill a question by requesting the Speaker in advance to defer a question to another day (Rule 52). Absent the members’ power to compel an answer, it may never be answered, and the question would lapse (Nizam Ahmed, The Parliament of Bangladesh: A Data Handbook, 2013, p 219-20). 

As a follow-up to an answer given, a member may issue a three days’ notice requesting a half-an-hour discussion. Half-an-hour discussion is attempted to seek further clarification of any points made by the minister in his answer. It comprises a short statement from the member and a reply from the minister concerned. A maximum of two other members may participate by asking questions (Rule 60). Here again the Speaker holds a wide discretion to accept or reject such notice. S/he may even reject if it ‘seeks to revise the policy of the Government’. This being a very protectionist threshold, statistics show that until the Ninth Parliament only 2.9 percent of half-an-hour discussion notice were entertained. 81.4 percent of them got rejected straight and others stood lapsed or withdrawn (Nizam Ahmed, Data Hand Book. p 223). 

Talking from an attitudinal perspective, the MPs, government and Speakers alike have failed to treat the question time from its accountability point of view. Members of parliament have traditionally prioritised their constituency concerns over the accountability aspect. A study over 130 sample questions from the Eighth Parliament indicated that around 40.77 percent of the questions involved constituency issues. Some 39 percent were mere would-you-tell-type questions that sought exploratory statements on national and contentious political issues. Another 29.23 percent were what-is-your-plan type explanatory questions. To our utter disgrace, no critical why-questions were asked during this period (Mustafizur Rahman, Parliament and Good Governance: A Bangladesh Perspective, Japanese Journal of Political Science, 2008, p 48). Even an earlier study covering the First to Fourth Parliaments confirms that not more than 10.05 percent questions had why-type accountability tunes (Aminuzzaman, Institutional Processes and Practices of Administrative Accountability: Role of the Jatya Sangsad, South Asian Studies, 1993, p 55).

Speakers’ neutrality is extremely important for a fruitful question time. Our Speaker has a wide discretion in relation to approval or denial of questions. S/he may disallow questions even on very vague grounds like ‘obstructing or prejudicially affecting the procedure of the House’ (Rule 55) and addressing ‘policy too large to be dealt within the time limits’ (Rule 53). Successive Speakers have rejected questions on mere technical grounds and failed to raise above partisan tendencies in conducting the sessions. Speakers also took a deferential approach to ministerial disinterest in questions and deliberate avoidance of answering. Statistics until the Ninth Parliament suggests that around 45 percent of the accepted questions were answered. While around 15-20 percent questions are rejected on procedural grounds, around 40 percent of the accepted questions became tamadi or lapsed (The Parliament of Bangladesh: Representation and Accountability, CPD-CMI Working Paper 2, 2012, p 54). Again, that no half-an-hour discussion took place in the seventh, eighth and ninth parliaments would perhaps evidence the successive speakers’ unwillingness to expose their party leaderships.

On a structural analysis, the question time in Bangladesh is not conducted on a partisan fashion. Hallmark of the British system is the Speaker’s wide discretion and conventional bi-partisanship of the session. The speaker makes sure that enough supplementary questions are asked, the floor alternates between the government and opposition and the shadow minister from opposition party is called upon at certain stage. Compared to the UK, the Australian House of Representatives is even more gladiatorial. Parliamentary questions are asked there without notice. Party whips would provide a list of members and the Speaker would alternate the floor between the government and opposition. Canadian House of Commons has taken yet another step ahead by reserving the question time exclusively for opposition members. While an Australia styled partisan listing of participants may yield a retrogressive constraint on our individual MPs, priority for opposition members, partisan alteration of floor and non-partisan attitude from the Speaker could contribute significantly for us.