The Reform Agenda: Are We Missing Something?

 

The Reform Agenda: Are We Missing Something?

 

Dr M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Lecturer in Law, University of Hull, UK

Published in: The Daily Observer, Dhaka, 26 October 2024

Link: https://www.observerbd.com/news/496552

 

REFORM seems to be a recurring theme of our national life. In 1972, our founding fathers promised a clean break from the twenty-four-year-long abusive presidential rule of the Pakistani military establishment. They promised a parliamentary democracy enshrined by some foundational pillars of constitutionalism. It did not serve us. In 1975, they preached “a second revolution” and transformed the system into a one-party presidential dictatorship. Months later, the country fell into bloodshed, and utter chaos. The 1976-79 period was full of constitutional reform, revision and rewriting. Constitutional ideals were tweaked, and multi-party politics was brought back but the presidential system endured. The 1980s also oversaw bloodshed and another military coup. Military rulers suspended the Constitution, changed its fundamental principles, tweaked its institutional design, created new political parties, rehabilitated some old ones and undertook high-profile anti-corruption drives. However, the presidential autocracy, corruption, vote rigging and pollution of politics did not stop.  The country oversaw the first significant mass upsurge in 1990. The military rule was discredited and the prospect of civilian rule ushered.

 

In 1991, a promising institution of election-time caretaker government was born and the parliamentary system returned. However, bipartisan politics became competitively authoritarian, conflictive, violent and conspiracy-laden. Regular transfer of power became a very big ask. The caretaker government proved a breathing space for democratic sustenance. The parliamentary system, however, failed to remedy the problems of non-accountability, corruption, and the cartelisation, criminalisation and personalisation of politics. The election-time caretaker government apart, there was no sign of institution-building in other areas of governance, accountability and justice. Local government, anti-corruption commission, election commission, judiciary, bureaucracy and parliament – all succumbed to the invincible dictatorship of the government – particularly the prime minister. By 2006, the caretaker government also was brought to its knees.

 

In 2007, the military returned to the scene and promised the nation to fix its problems once and for all. The 2006-2007 government initiated another round of anti-corruption drive, loaded a thinly veiled attack on the political parties and attempted a much-hyped “minus-two” solution. However, the initial zeal faded within one and a half years. The military leadership had to hand over the power. They, however, remarkably separated the lower judiciary and brought significant reform around the Election Commission’s powers and structure. Notable reforms were pressed in the Anti-Corruption Commission and other accountability institutions. In 2009, a political party came to power by laying down a hugely popular "Din Bodoler Sonod". However, the days went from bad to worse. For the next sixteen years, Bangladesh went through the longest stretch of one-party dominance and authoritarian premiership in its history.

 

In 2024, history repeated itself through another round of bloodshed, agonising violence, street agitation and a mass upsurge. With an “interim government” in power, there is now another drive for reform in almost every sector of the state, including the Constitution. Key issues in the agenda are strikingly similar to what we have seen time and again since our independence – institution building, accountability, rule of law, independence of the judiciary, free and fair elections and corruption-free governance. Some are blaming the Constitution’s foundational principles for all our enduring problems. They want to rewrite them, forgetting that we made, unmade and remade those at least four times in the past – 1975, 1979, 1988 and 2011. Others argue that the constitutional design is flawed. They want to overhaul it, again forgetting that we made, unmade and remade it at least five times in the past – 1975, 1979, 1992, 1996 and 2011. Academic researchers usually blame the lack of “political will” and “democratic instrumental vision” among the political leaders. However, nobody seems to seriously talk about the political parties themselves.

 

Since its birth, Bangladesh had at least three clear moments of fresh starts – 1972, 1991 and 2009. On each of these occasions, the political parties and their leaders inherited the best possible institutional arrangements and political consensus. However, they failed us miserably on every occasion. They unmade whatever progress was there and then consolidated and perpetuated their powers. Now that they are again proposing and promising a stitch or two here and there, 31 points, 10 points, etc., the bigger question is - Could we trust them anymore?

 

Constitutional designs of ‘institutions, structures, organizations and legal framework’ are meant to enable the state to function as a self-governing system. However, it is the political parties who operate, rather say spoil,  it. Surprisingly for Bangladesh, parties have always lived beyond the limits and rules of the Constitution. Renowned political scientist Richard Pildes has shown that constitutions can deal with parties in at least three ways. It can ensure equal access to democratic competition and proportionate access to state finance for all. Next, it can create minority safeguards within the institutions such as parliament and protect the parties against unconstitutional bans. Lastly, it can ensure that parties themselves are internally democratic and accessible to the people (Richard Pildes, ‘Foreword: The Constitutionalization of Democratic Politics’ (2004) 118 (1) Harvard Law Review 1).

 

The 2024 reform window must ensure that political parties are brought into the constitutional framework of democratic accountability.  It must address the historically ignored questions - how the parties form and behave, where they get their money from, where they spend it, how they choose their leaders, and how they answer the people. Missing a conversation on this key issue of democratic accountability, how can we rest assured that the reforms of 2024 will be respected by the internally undemocratic political parties and their parochial leaders?