Questioning the ‘Westminster’ Attribute of Bangladesh Jatya Sangsad

 

Nirmal Kumar Saha*

M.Jashim Ali Chowdhury**

 

 

The Journal of Law, Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh 

Vol 10 (Special) No 2, Volume Year: 2014-2015 (published in 2021) pp 209-231

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Abstract

The Westminster Parliamentary System is both a tradition and a concept. As a tradition, it represents a loose family of political jurisdictions inheriting their shared institutions and characteristics from the British Parliament based in the Palace of Westminster. As a concept, it is a majoritarian democracy where the majority party harness all the powers and controls over legislation, governance and policymaking. Minority, on the other hand, is assigned with the rule of institutional opposition and opinion building against the ruling party programs, policies and laws.  At independence, Bangladesh chose to carry the British legacy of the Westminster parliamentary system. Whether the system as outlined in the 1972 constitution was purely Westminsterial is not abundantly clear. The executive branch led by the Prime Minister and Cabinet is drawn from the majority party in Parliament and remains answerable to the Parliament. Like the Crown, the President symbolises the ceremonial head of the state. However, the judiciary had an American tune – a separate branch with a constitutionally secured tenure for the judges and a power of judicial review. This study seeks to see how this ‘half-hearted’ blend of separation of power and dynastic party system in an avowedly Westminster system undermined the legislative branch of state by substantially affecting the ‘horizontal accountability of democratic intuitions and ‘vertical accountability of the rulers to the ruled. Assessing the Bangladesh parliament’s mandate and performance as a law-making, accountability and accountable body, the paper explains how it fails the core majoritarian values expected of a typical Westminster parliament. As an incremental response to the deeply rooted institutional and cultural problems surrounding the legislative branch of the Republic, some strategic reforms are needed.

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*Associate Professor, Department of Law, University of Chittagong, Email: nirmalksaha@yahoo.com

**PhD Candidate, King’s College London, Email: m.chowdhury@kcl.ac.uk