Parliament, public engagement and legislation in Bangladesh: a case study of Domestic Violence Act of 2010

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the process of enactment of the domestic violence bill in Bangladesh. One of the distinctive features of the bill, passed in 2010, was that it originated in civil society and widespread public engagement characterised its enactment process. The paper explores the factors that encouraged different actors to agree to enact the law. There are, however, not many examples of parliament–CSO interaction in the legislative process. The paper identifies reasons that discourage engagement in other areas of public concern. Prominent among the reasons underlying weak public engagement in the legislative process are: monopoly of the government in the legislative process and its eagerness to pass laws in haste, dominance of part-timers in parliament, legal restriction on ‘independent’ voting in parliament, over-centralization of power in political parties and politicisation of CSOs.

KEYWORDS:

• Public engagement
• domestic violence
• civil society organisations
• law commission
• delegates
• pre-legislative scrutiny
• Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association

Acknowledgement

The author expresses indebtedness to Professor Emma Crewe and three reviewers for their extremely useful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. Any shortcomings remain the responsibility of the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nizam Ahmed is Professor of Public Administration at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. He graduated with Honours and obtained a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Dhaka. He has a Master of Social Sciences (Administration) degree from the University of Tasmania, Australia and a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His fields of interest are legislative behaviour, local government, party politics and comparative administration. He has published several books and numerous articles in leading journals. His most recent publications include Aiding the parliament of Bangladesh: Experience and prospect (2012) and The Bangladesh parliament: A data handbook (2013).

Notes

1. (http://www.getdomesticviolencehelp.com/domestic-violence-and-poverty.html. accessed 10/9/16)

2. There are, however, some who tend to argue that the relationship between poverty and domestic violence is not linear. Those failing to find any causal link between the two tend to consider poverty as a risk factor, rather than as a potential outcome (Kishor & Johnson, 2005, p. 149). In other words, poverty is not necessarily seen as an outcome or causal factor, but it is generally assumed to significantly increase the risk of domestic violence.

3. ‘How Public Engagement Amplifies Parliamentary Representation’ (https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/7181795d-d7f5-4d08-b894-d19d72ca0a1e.pdf) (Accessed 1 June 2018).

4. ‘Parliament and the public: Public information /engagement services in the House of Commons’ (https://www.parliament.uk/documents/speaker/digital-democracy/Digi094AileenWalker.pdf) (Accessed 25 June 2018).

5. ‘Effective Public Engagement’ (http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/aspg/ASPG%20papers/Effective%20Public%20Engagement%20-Susan%20Want.pdf) (Accessed 25 June 2018).

6. Such control is often mandated by law. For example, Article 70 of the Constitution of Bangladesh requires that an MP follow the directive of the party while voting in parliament failing which s/he risks losing membership. (GoB, 2011) This provision disadvantages the government members more than opposition lawmakers.

7. Many members have other commitments that discourage them to play any pro-active role in parliament or in committees. In Bangladesh, for example, nearly 75 per cent of MPs are business people; they lack adequate time to perofmr parliamentary/committee duties.

8. Differences between CSOs and NGOs may be noticed in their orientation and objectives and also strategies they adopt to get things done. Generally, CSOs have more political and policy orientation than NGOs which often are development-oriented and are concerned with delivery of services. CSOs may also provide services, albeit of a different nature, and are not as pronounced as those provided by NGOs,

9. ‘Promoting Good Governance through Civil Society–Legislator Linkages’ (http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.istr.org/resource/resmgr/working_papers_barcelona/jones.tembo.pdf) (Accessed 2 June 2018).

10. ‘Strengthening the interaction between civil society and the Parliament: Position paper’, Available at https:// transparency.mv/2015/03/strengthening-the-interaction-between-civil-society-and-the-parliament-position-paper/ (Accessed 28 September 2018).

11. One chair of a committee once informed the author that it (committee) made substantial changes to a bill referred to it by parliament. Many CSOs with financial support from donors helped the committee organize public hearings and make many substantial changes in the bill. After the submission of the report on the bill in the House, the Prime Minister summoned the chairman and sought clarification on the motives underlying changes made in the bill. The Prime Minister was extremely annoyed and reprimanded him for altering a bill approved by the Cabinet. The Chairman lost his position in the next parliament.

12. This is probably the only credible survey undertaken to explore the perception of different categories of respondents on the role of Parliament and parliamentarians in Bangladesh. The sample included 95 NGOs and 5339 households. Face to face interviews were conducted with 96 MPs.

Additional information

Funding

The research on which the paper is based was funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for International Development (DFID) [grant number ES/L005409/1] and coordinated by Professor Emma Crewe of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at School of Asian and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and Dr Ruth Fox of Hansard Society, London.