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Committees
have become well recognized and integral part of all
modern legislatures. The rationale for having a
mechanism for Committee seems to be obvious enough to a
perceptive politician. Committees have been termed as
workhorses of legislatures for several reasons. As the
tasks of the government have multiplied, the nature of
tasks has also become increasing complex. In this
backdrop it is quite understandable that it is difficult
for plenary meetings to devote required time and
attention on policy issues. Due to the immense workload
and range of subject matter that a modern legislature
confronts, the mechanism of Committee system has
gradually become important. Thus Committees enable the
legislatures to subject bills and other matters to a
detailed scrutiny.
Committee
system is in practice under our Constitution. Article 76
mentions three statutory Committees and provides for
instituting other additional standing Committees. The
same article briefly delineates the function and powers
of the Committees. The detailed structure, formation,
power and role of parliamentary Committees are given in
the Rules of Procedure. As the title of my paper
suggests, there is no room for going to a detailed
discussion of the structure and function of
parliamentary Committees. However, role of Chairmanship
will inevitably involve reference to formation and role
of the Committees in our legislature
Our
Parliamentary Committees owe their existence to the
express provision in the Constitution, which I have
mentioned already. Here I want ring a note of warning.
We must not assume that Committee should become an
alternative for the legislature itself. Rather the
philosophy behind the creation of Committees is to
assist the House in its becoming a more effective tool
of governance. In our system the role of the Committee
chairmanship as well as the Committee evolved through
different political flavours. The trend and evolution of
the Committee system can be broadly classified into
three major periods, namely the period between the
adoption of the Constitution and 1975, the next period
covering 1975-1990 interspersed with military rule and
the third period covering the period between 1990 when
free and election was held under caretaker government
till date.
During
the first two periods, that is till 1990 poll was held,
parliamentary Committees were non-existent except in
Nadine. The Committee came to the foreground of
political life- only after the reintroduction of the
parliamentary system in 1991, which was unanimously
agreed upon by both the ruling and the opposition alike.
With the return of parliamentary system the need for a
vital change was felt in the Rules of Procedure
particularly with regard to the Committee system. As a
result in 1992 the Rules of Procedure were amended with
a view to confer more powers on the Committee.
It
will not be out of place here mention that though the
era of direct or indirect military control ended in
1990, the dependence of the succeeding government
(1991-1996) on civil bureaucracy and retired army
generals was markedly visible. During this period the
concerned Minister was the Committee Chairman to lead
the Committee to examine the discrepancy and
irregularity of his own ministry. In this regard we can
easily understand the level of accountability,
transparency and parliamentary oversight of the
Committee system which can hardly be termed as
effective. This serious structural flaw in the Committee
system was finally removed with another crucial change
in the Rules of Procedure. The change was struck in the
next parliament in 1997 under the leadership of Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina. It will not be an exaggeration
to claim that the introduction of non-minister
chairmanship in the committee system was a historical
step towards ensuring transparency and accountability of
a democratically elected government. The conflict of
interest experienced by a Minister who was also the
ex-officio chairman of the committee on his own ministry
was finally overcome. In the new set-up the minister
remains as the ex-officio member of the concerned
Committee.
Now
that I have given you a very short account of the
reforms that have taken place in the 90s, I shall now
turn to the present situation of the Committees and
Chairmen. It is an undeniable fact that these reforms
have ushered in a new era of political responsibility,
political status and public functions for the members of
Parliament as well as for the Committee Chairman.
Regarding the role, it can be said that the Chairman
hardly has any power other than those conferred on the
Committee itself. The Chairman is the presiding officer
of the Committee and therefore enjoys the latent powers
underlying the term "presiding officer".
Though most of the Chairmen are more of wily politicians
than presiding officers but there is positive scope for
the presiding officer to rise alcove bipartisan politics
by remaining strictly impartial.
The
issue of impartiality of the Chairman is perhaps too
important for a successful and truly effective
committee. No one will deny that a Committee is composed
of members who belong to more than one or more political
parties. The party affiliation is the strongest factor
that influences the members’ behaviour. On the other
hand it is equally true that the mechanism of Committee
system was contemplated so that committees become a
forum of discussion which can accommodate divergent
political opinions. It may happen that treasury bench
may propose a policy in the House and the opposition may
oppose or the vice versa. When such matters are referred
to the Committee, the members get an opportunity to
discuss at length the issues related to the question.
Here the Committee chairman has a vital role to play. He
can identify the common ground for agreement for the
majority and minority alike. Consequently it is the
Chairman's role to help the Committee to reach a
concrete recommendation in the interest of the people.
It should also be duty of a Chairman to make the
dissenting member understand that although his proposal
could not be accommodated, the proposal was given proper
attentions and was duly considered. Seen in this light
the chairman ceases to be an agent of majority and
become an umpire to ventilate the healthy initiatives
taken by the members - majority and minority.
Apart
from this coordinating nature of the chairmanship there
is another unstated function, which the chairman is
expected to perform. The chairman not only helps the
committee members with divergent political opinion to
drown their differences but also makes use of expertise
and wisdom of the members and experts in dealing with
the specific issues that come before the Committee. In
this way the Committee becomes more functional and
dynamic. Committees have often been described as the
training ground for future chairman and ministers. It is
here that the members can acquaint themselves with the
duties and responsibilities of chairmanship and develop
their expertise on various national issues. On the other
hand, the Chairman regards his work as the way to future
ministerial responsibility. Conversely, the honour of
the Chairman has been recognized making the concerned
minister an ex-officio member of the Committee. Our
experience shows that the ex-officio member, who is also
a member of the cabinet, has always shown an eagerness
to win public support for his executive actions by
taking the Committee into confidence. This is a healthy
sign in the growth of our parliamentary democracy.
At
this stage I would like to draw the attention of the
honourable guests to a significant hindrance which has
substantially contributed in curtailing the
effectiveness of our Committee system. There are not
enough numbers of Committee staff and even those who are
engaged in Committee work are not professionally
trained. If we want to ensure an effective and strong
Committee system we must have professionally trained,
expert and research oriented secretarial personnel to
assist the Committee. Another problem that plagues the
Committee system is its present practice of Committee
sittings at least once in a month. This arrangement
discourages continuity and cohesiveness in the working
atmosphere of the Committee. To overcome this problem we
can adopt a system in which the Committee shall meet in
a session in every month instead of sitting at least
once in a month. In this way the Committees can dispose
of the matters at hand in one go within the shortest
possible time.
We
know that a legislature is known by the Committees it
keeps. In our system the Committees are made more
democratic and people oriented by the induction of
non-minister chairmanship. Although qualitative change
was brought into the overall Committee system this
revolutionary change with regard to Committee
Chairmanship is yet to be recognized providing his power
and function in express statutory terms. In this changed
scenario if the Committees are to function with full
effectiveness a few more measures needs to be
introduced. These measures are:
(i)
We can consider a proposal for granting the
Committee the privilege, to be exercised by its
chairman, to receive the day to-day transactions of
the concerned ministry relating to its external
business;
(ii)
Committee needs to be provided with secretarial
staff who will collect information and materials from
the ministries and departments, prepare memoranda and
briefs for the Committee members. The secretarial staff
will perform their duties under the direct supervision
of the Chairman.
We have entered into a new phase of Committee system
and we should be prepared to see more changes with
regard to the role of chairmanship as well as the
Committee itself. It will make an interesting study for
the future political analysts how the conventional role
of a Committee Chairman is changing today in a positive
way and how the formation of sub-committees arc creating
a new type of chairmanship or conveyors guided by the
parent Committee to deliberate on a particular issue or
scheme.
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