The Efficacy of Parliamentary Question A Comparative Investigation into the House of Commons and the Jatiya Sangsad Practices

Nirmal Kumar Saha 

Associate Professor, Department of Law, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Assistant Professor, Department of Law, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

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Abstract

Westminster institution of Parliamentary Question Time (PQT) has a special significance in enforcing ministerial responsibility. While PQT focuses mainly on departments and ministries, the Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQT) in the UK Parliament and other Westminster traditions remained more of a theatrical episode than an affective accountability tool. Bangladesh's experience with PMQT also presents a theatrical monologue. PQT and PMQT 1aken together, accountability impact of these in Bangladesh are not uncontested. Purpose of this paper is to assess the accountability impact of the PQT and PMQT in Bangladesh Jatya Sangsad and compare it with the UK House of Commons with reference to the procedural rules governing the sessions, structural issues guiding the speaker's discretion in conducting sessions and the attitudinal issues regulating the individual legislators and ministers approach to the device. While the authors share the view that parliamentary questions in Bangladesh are "generally not successful in ensuring responsible behaviour", the current paper seeks to travel beyond this generalised claim and find the deeper reasons contributing to the failure.