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?
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