Usurpation of power should be made penal offence Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, AL presidium member and lawmaker, tells New Age.  Do you find the two-year emergency rule legitimate – politically and constitutionally? In my careful assessment, the two-year rule of the Fakhruddin government was illegal in as much as they did not help the Election Commission to hold the elections within 90 days and they violated the constitutional provision for not doing anything beyond the routine work of administration. They also administered emergency rule beyond 120 days which is also illegal. I also feel the president should have been impeached for violating the constitution and putting the government in power. A president is a symbol of unity. Before entering the office he takes oath to preserve the constitution, to act without fear. It seems that not only has he failed to do that, he has also deliberately violated the constitution. There were ample grounds for his impeachment. If he would have been impeached, it would serve as a caution to act prudently in the future, to uphold the constitution and law. The declaration of emergency itself was illegal. The president, only on the advice of the prime minister, can declare emergency, according to our constitution. Article 141A of the constitution states that he can do so only if an emergency exists in which the security or economic life of the country is threatened or there is threat of war, external aggression or internal disturbance. Also, the conduct of the chief adviser was illegal. Article 58D of the constitution says the chief advisor should perform routine functions of the government, not make any constitutional amendments and also to take measures to maintain the law and order situation. He had no business to do what he did. I feel that the caretaker government should not have exceeded its 90-day limit. In the first place, the appointment of Iajuddin as the chief adviser was illegal. The constitution clearly states that if the immediate past chief justice cannot take power than you appoint the one before. After all options have been exhausted only then can the president take power. Many people, however, view these events as a failure of the caretaker system, I however differ with that. We, the Awami League, made the demand for a caretaker government in the first part of the 1990s. We thought that it was not right of a party in power to conduct general elections. True, the constitution has been violated this time. However, this does not mean that we should get rid of the system for the few people who misused it. The Election Commission has proved that it is capable of holding free and fair elections. I think if the practice of the caretaker government is kept on for a few more terms we can develop a culture for holding free and fair elections provided that the commission gets reasonable support to function. In what ways have the actions of the regime affected the country – politically, economically and socially – in the short and long term? The previous government was a total failure. There was a price hike in all essential commodities in the market and there was non implementation of development projects. Not a single megawatt of power could they increase. Hawkers were thrown out, shops were demolished and it seemed that the interim government was innovated as an institution to suppress the poor for the benefit of few. The previous government had no right to throw the hawkers out of the city and buy luxury cars for themselves. Who authorized them to change the tax structure and levy new taxes? Four lakh people were arrested in the last two years. The Fakhruddin government involved itself in two things — the Bangladesh Better Business Forum and the citizens charter. Don't you think a citizen's charter is a mockery when fundamental rights were being violated? Don't you think the BBBF was counterproductive when businessmen throughout the country were insulted, subjugated, persecuted and extorted? Investment through out the country went down despite rise in our household savings and remittances from abroad. The fiscal policy in the course of the last eight years favoured luxury imports at the cost of precious capital goods. Luxury cars, liquid milk and fried parathas were given preference over other necessary items. The administration of Fakhruddin government was unproductive, reactionary, and oppressive. There is no doubt that they violated the people's fundamental rights – they interfered into the independent functioning of the judiciary, they failed to do anything to contain runaway inflation, they could not increase investment within the country. The Fakhruddin government neglected infrastructure development and they could not utilise the increase in export earning and remittances to the best advantage of economic and social development. Socially, their work was despicable – they wanted to remove the poor instead of poverty. Meanwhile, I have particular reservations about two institutions that were used by the interim government to establish their authority. The first is the Anti-Corruption Commission. The Anti-Corruption Commission Act of 2004, under which the commission is established, is itself not a good law. It defined corruption in terms of offences selected from the penal code excluding the main areas of corruption in this country. It gave itself so-called independence over the elected executive authority of the government. In a democracy no appointed authority, as the Anti-Corruption Commission in this case, can be given authority and responsibility higher than that of the elected executive order of the state. The Anti-Corruption Commission was given power to determine its own expenditure as if all expenditure incurred by the commission was charged expenditure as detailed in the constitution. It was as though the government was bound to pay all its costs. They brought crores worth of computers without any competitive bidding. The anti-corruption law did not prescribe any punishment for violating their laws by their own personnel. They have spent an astounding amount – Tk 76 crore – for paying their lawyers for no good reason. The remuneration for their own lawyers is more than that of the chief justice. In the process of fighting corruption, the Anti-Corruption Commission was not given the right to violate the fundamental rights of the accused of seeking for a bail. They assumed every accused as guilty even before their trial. Unfortunately, the commission assumed that honesty was a military thing. On that judgement, out of 18 directors they appointed 14 from the military. In its independence, the commission even disregarded its rules with regards appointment of personnel to giving preference to hand picked personnel, liked by the chairman and its members. The commission functioned as an arm of a military government to limit the political activity of the politicians. They even formulated king's political parties. Their choice of victims was highly selective and derogatory. The Anti-Corruption Commission exceeded its authority. Meanwhile, the DGFI has been abused by the powers that be. It was politically used by its masters and in the process they lost their sanctity and effectiveness. The rulers established DGFI as an organisation for the violation of people's rights and the law itself. The DGFI should be made accountable and function within their charter or else be disbanded. What approach should the parliament take in dealing with the decisions and actions of the emergency regime? The parliament should constitute a special committee to investigate the misdeeds of the interim government.The prime minister has already announced that the misdeeds of the past governments starting 2001, will be inquired into and the criminals will be punished. What do you think were the forces/factors/events that led to the January 11, 2007 intervention? For me, it was the failure of leadership of the BNP government bent on rigging the elections slated for January 22, that brought the 1/11 episode. If the regime led by Khaleda Zia respected democratic institutions and norms this episode would not have taken place and people would not have suffered from undemocratic rule that followed thereafter. That said, the military has no right to intervene in politics. The constitution says that this republic was set up so that people can prosper in freedom. Military intervention has worsened the situation in terms of our progress in building democratic institutions, establishing people's rights and the development process. How can the recurrence of such undemocratic interventions into the political process be deterred – politically and legally? The recurrence of such sad episode must be avoided. For this we need a few things: People's consciousness for the need and sustenance of democratic development need to be increased. The excesses and corruption committed by the interim government should be investigated and persons responsible for such corruption should be brought to book. Usurpation of constitutional rule should be made a penal offence like sedition. |
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