Laws and rules and regulations in governmental sectors of Bangladesh must be developed immediately for making the citizen’s life comfortable but due to the lack of proper management support and corruption, people of Bangladesh are facing difficulties in many ways.
Introduction
Bangladesh officially the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, it is a unitary state and parliamentary democracy. Constitutions which are being followed are 1972; amended 1974, 1979, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1996, 2004. There are laws, rules and regulations like other countries have, but the problem is the uses of those laws are not regulated properly for this people of our country facing difficulties in many ways. Suppose, I get mugged somewhere in Dhaka city if I go to the nearby police station maximum time they don’t want to waste the time to solve this kind of problem, as a result muggers got chance to mug another person in the same place. This is just a simple example that I have given. Like this there are thousands of stories happening everyday in our country where our government people or public servant do not try to co-operate with us or they don’t even bother themselves to come up and fix these problems. This scenario is not only in a police station even every governmental sector have got these problems. This is just because lack of proper management support and the main reason is CORRUPTION. Only for this we are facing tremendous problems everyday, life is getting harder and harder. Political parties are changing but this miss management isn’t solved yet, and the root of these problems is corruption in everywhere. You want to pass a simple house plan from the required office? No you can’t do it that much easily as it sounds; you have to roam around thousands of tables to pass a simple house plan.
Corruption: The word corrupt when used as an adjective literally means “utterly broken”. In modern English usage the words corruption and corrupt have many meanings: [1]
- Political corruption: the abuse of public power, office, or resources by government officials or employees for personal gain, e.g. by extortion, soliciting or offering bribes[2]
- Police corruption, a specific form of police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, and/or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest[3]
- Corporate corruption, corporate criminality and the abuse of power by corporation officials, either internally or externally Corruption (philosophical concept), often refers to spiritual or moral impurity, or deviation from an ideal Corruption Perceptions Index, published yearly by Transparency International Putrefaction, the natural process of decomposition in the human and animal body following death[4]
- Data corruption, an unintended change to data in storage or in transit[5]
- Linguistic corruption, the change in meaning to a language or a text introduced by cumulative errors in transcription as changes in the language speakers’ comprehension
- Bribery in politics, business, or sport
- Rule of law, governmental corruption of judiciary, includes governmental spending on the courts, which is completely financially controlled by the executive in many transitional and developing countries.[6]
All of these kinds of corruptions are happening in our country each and every moment most of us know these facts but don’t bother to stop it or raise our voices cause somehow we are also corrupted. Wherever we go, whatever we see, whomever we observe; we see he/she is corrupted by anyhow. The corruption has been extended in Food Ministry, Education Ministry, LGED, Health Ministry, even In every government offices, in every ministry and where not?[7]
Brief
Laws and rules and regulations in Bangladesh
The Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees equal rights to all citizens, irrespective of race, religion, sex, and or other considerations. The “directive principles of state policy” as stated in the Constitution obligate the government to provide equal opportunity and protection of law, and a minimum standard of living to all citizens. The right to life also includes safety and security of the citizens of the country. In reality the vast majority of the Bangladesh population has no assurance of two nutritious meals a day, according to a statistics provided to the UN Millennium Conference by the Bangladesh Representative on October 18, 2000. In 1995-96, 35.6% of the populations were below the national poverty line. The standard of life i.e., safe and clean housing, safety of employment, or level of education as would make it possible for them to understand their rights and obligations in accordance to the constitution. Bangladesh newspapers abound in stories of murder, rape, fatwa, family violence, students and political clashes that includes exploitation—by factory owners, landlords, businessman and the state’s own functionaries, i.e., police, judicial and revenue officials. The vulnerable groups affected are women, children, landless, working class and the poor.[8]
The Bangladesh legal system’s Western roots come from the English, as the core of South Asian governmental infrastructure was created over the 300 year span of British colonialism. Instead of disposing of all draconian colonist thinking that contains inherent racism and disregard, the textual laws of Bangladesh integrate the Western philosophy of democracy with their values. As a document, the Bangladesh Constitution offers a mix of nationalism and individual freedom that resembles the historical struggles. Yet, in practice, the laws of Bangladesh fail to sift out incessant corruption and deliver equality to every citizen.[9]
However, in Bangladesh, the researcher identified various forms of discrimination, one being discrimination of indigenous people and minorities, and another being gender discrimination. Discrimination weighs heavily on the justice system of Bangladesh. Affordability and access to justice has created severe obstacles to establish peace and justice in the society. The justice system in Bangladesh in general and criminal justice system in particular has been facing many challenges. The management of the criminal justice system is inefficient and the investigative machinery regarding crimes is terribly crude in terms of attitudes and facilities. Bangladesh is searching for legal reforms. The researcher identified that absence of advanced policing system is a primary cause of difficulties and harm. In the existing adversarial system, the civil law system is expensive and controversial. [10]
“It is difficult to understand how a country that won its freedom protesting against injustice and intolerance can arbitrarily detain thousands of people every year under administrative detention laws, which deny access to judicial remedies. In practice, quite often, governments in power invoke the Special Powers Act, 1974 (SPA) to detain members of opposition parties.
The District Magistrate asserting that the person in question is likely to cause the commission of a ‘prejudicial act’ further assists such a step. Such discretion by the detaining authority, most fortunately, more often than not, are declared as unlawful by the High Court, but mostly on procedural grounds.
This is because the Constitution empowers the High Court to satisfy itself that a person is detained in custody under a lawful authority. The net result is that someone undergoes unnecessary harassment. We have over the years seen many calls for the repeal of the SPA, but till now that has not taken place. It has also come from political parties but only when they are in opposition. When in government, they have defended the use of the SPA and maintained it.
It has been mentioned earlier that torture as an instrument is not permitted by the judicial process. However, that has not been so over the last three decades. It has been widespread and persistent. The successive governments have also routinely ignored it. Those affected, include children, women, the elderly, opposition politicians, criminal suspects and sometimes even innocent bystanders in the street”.[11]
“Bangladesh is struggling between Western (primarily British) legal systems that are viewed as vestiges of colonialism and fatwa, which represents an alternative, that is not Western, but rather reflects an integration of practices and values gleaned from around the world, with a particular emphasis on non-Western approaches (aboriginal peoples in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, South African reconciliation experiments, etc)”. (Dr. Peachey, D: 2004)
The justice system in Bangladesh has been facing numerous challenges that include in sensitiveness and inaccessibility to justice by the majority of the population, “Over the last few years, it has been established that poverty is not only about low income and consumption; it is also about low achievement in education, health, nutrition, and other areas of human development. The poor lack material opportunities like jobs, credit, market for their produce, access to safe drinking water, sanitation services. They have virtually no access to the political processes and local decision-making. They face considerable barriers resulting from distinctions on gender, ethnicity, and social status”.[12]
Corruption & Bangladesh
The citizens who are facing difficulties each and everyday the reason behind all these is Corruption. No matter that is traffic problems in the road, ignorance of police towards citizens, unemployment, lack of power supply whatever those are everything is just because of the corruption even the proper management itself is corrupt so there is no question to give them a blame only to the management. You won’t be able to get a job if you don’t give bribe, even though if you got the first place. Your important file will not be passed within exact days if you don’t make the Office peons happy. You won’t be able to get the Tender though you are eligible if you are not a member of the present government’s political party. Can we imagine that, a poor farmer who earns less than 100 BDT per day; he has to give bribe to the local fertilizer dealers.
Every deeds of the Government involved with the Corruption. Nothing is possible in Bangladesh if you don’t give bribe to the people who are responsible for it. There are a lot of strategy has been created for anti corruption Bangladesh but all of the strategy are basically useless, because the people who will apply these strategies are corrupted also. A thief will never ever want to stop the way of theft. The corruption would be eliminated if the Laws of Bangladesh would be applied correctly. But who will implement the laws (the police, the Judges, the armies) is corrupted also. It seems like, giving responsibility to the fox to guard your hens. If we can overcome from the corruption then only that time we can able to think of a comfortable life.[13]
After doing a survey on people’s experiences with these services, the TI chapter discovered that the majority of them had been victims of corruption. Transparency International Bangladesh set up around 130 information desks at the hospitals to advise people of their rights and basic entitlements. All these desks are run by young volunteers and they have managed to reach a staggering 30,000 people, resulting in significant improvements. Unauthorized payments appear to be drying up, complaint boxes have been installed in hospitals and fewer people are now going to private clinics when services are publicly available. [14]
The role of the police, so far, has been to allow corrupt segments of society to compete with each other in the race of corruption, by themselves practicing corruption. In return for bribes, they allow offenders to commit crimes one after another; they work as musclemen for corrupt rich and influential groups to exploit and harass the common people, who are poor and helpless.[15]
Who are they behind these all problems? Why these corruptions take place? Are we all involved in these?
Actually we don’t know who is the main reason behind all these or may be we don’t want to but corruption is spreading each and everywhere because we are supporting it somehow so we are also somehow involved in these. So we can’t only blame those people who take bribe and getting richer. Cause we are making them richer by giving our money.
“We all see the corruption of the politicians because still they’re the only part of the system that has to answer to the people to some extent. They either answer to their constituency, or to party officials or to the media. What about all the quite, silent intellectuals, in Safari suits? If politicians are supposed to make the policies, the bureaucrats are supposing to implement them. In a country like ours, where a minister might come from any background, bureaucrats always hold the key. If the government is a machine then the bureaucrats are the parts of it and politicians are the fuel. Do we ever ask them, if they are doing their jobs in time or not. What about their transparency and accountability? We all know corruption in bureaucracy is all over. The most powerful man in that corridor is the peon, because before an Oracle database can find out, he’ll know where your file is and who need to release it. It’s a place where you have to go to make everyone happy, “ektu khushi koirey den”, like a child in an amusement park; doesn’t matter how sad you might be.
That is the system that all of these people work in year after year and we point to the men who go there for five years. As if they go there with a broom to clean dust that they can clean this corruption in a day. Another trend is observed, all these government officials, who are supposed to be the educated section of our country will work under favorable governments in favorable posts, get ousted by the opposing force, get retired and start politics or a think tank organization. Some would work under all government, get retired and become the experts in media with their three magic analysis tools “could”, “should”, “would”. Now some would even become expert commentators to the government itself, they “advise” everyone. But none would point to change this bureaucratic system. None would say why our brightest and the bests of these generations not joining the system.
We see exclusive on television channels on how they caught a policy inspector taking bribe on the street or have a network of people collecting their share of the society’s wealth! We feel so proud of our ever growing, ever strong, everlasting Duracell media and share the video all over the internet. It’s a day of victory of democracy, and I did my part by clicking ‘share the video’ on Facebook to make it even stronger. I want to ask those news channel how come they never show any news program about the traffic police officer who has to ask for lift at twelve o’clock at night to a CNG passenger after a long days duty, because he has to go home by himself and has no money. I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me. How come nobody shares a story about how a Sub Inspectors position has a ‘fixed’ rate to get a job? If I come from a lower middle class family and had to spend money to get to that position, what job enthusiasm do I have to do any good? You expect him to be honest and motivated on a five thousand taka job with no respect in the social structure. Did anyone do a story on the constable who has his family in a one room house, only to protect and serve the ones whose pets spend more in luxury then that constable’s one month salary?? We’ll only hear about the SI who made millions or the habildar who owns a hotel.”[16]
Conclusion
The constant political turmoil in the country indicates the gap between the elected representatives of the people and the masses. It also points out the specious character of democracy and rule of law in Bangladesh. The citizens are routinely held hostage by the political parties, who want nothing more than to grab power at any cost to the nation or to life and limb of the common man. The frequent political strikes called by the opposition political parties effect the entire nation, and paralyze normal life for sometimes days on end. Business offices, banks, shops and many other establishments are forced to close, which effectively renders a huge loss to the country’s already weak and unstable economy. This is also devastating for the civil society, NGOs, and human rights activists cannot make much headway until some semblance of stability returns to governance in Bangladesh.[17]
The extent to which corruption has become accepted as ‘a way of life’ in Bangladesh is challenging in its implications. A recently published feature on corruption in a leading weekend magazine, entitled, ‘Corruption of Politics and Politics of Corruption’ consisted of a virtual litany of dubious deals, underhand agreements and blatantly corrupt acts by political leaders and parties in Bangladesh, from the infamous regime of H.M Ershad, to the present leadership as well. But surprisingly, both the media report and the research conducted by the Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad, upon which it was partly based, appear to have generated little reaction. Certainly, there were no reports of a public outcry, not even a barrage of letters or telephone calls in response to these successive and extremely challenging expressions of public opinion and media analysis.[18]
Consequently, there is an urgent need for social science to devise effective ways of addressing the issue of corruption. In order to do this, it is necessary to isolate and where necessary, abandon concepts which are inaccurate, alien or ideologically biased, so that the various characteristics of corruption as they exist in the real world can be understood. It is important to relate the perception of ‘more’ corruption in the developing world with socio-economic conditions and to examine how they influence and create conditions for corruption and abuse. It is also important to locate the issue of corruption in the context of development administration because over the years and to a great extent, the development agenda has defined and set the standards of what corruption implies to the country.[19]
There are a lot of strategy has been created for anti corruption Bangladesh but all of the strategy are basically useless, because the people who will apply these strategies are corrupted also. You know, a thief will never ever want to stop the way of theft. The corruption would be eliminated if the Laws of Bangladesh would be applied correctly. But who will implement the laws (the police, the Judges, the armies) is corrupted also. It seems like, giving responsibility to the fox to guard your hens.[20]
Bibliography
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[7] http://bdtalks.com/anti-corruption-bangladesh-how-to-make-bangladesh-a-corruption-free-country/
[8] http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidRecord=6999
[9] http://www.bnpbd.com/laws-of-bangladesh.html
[10] Jahid, D. samaj@mts.net
[11] (Zamir, M: 2003, the human rights matrix)
[12] Karim. A. Choudhury: 2000
[13] http://bdtalks.com/anti-corruption-bangladesh-how-to-make-bangladesh-a-corruption-free-country/
[14] http://blog.transparency.org/2010/05/07/a-side-effect-of-corruption-in-bangladesh/
[15] http://deshivoice.blogspot.com/2007/10/can-truth-commission-help-bangladesh.html
[16] http://www.e-bangladesh.org/2010/11/15/corruption-of-the-people-by-the-people-for-themselves/
[17] http://www.ti-bangladesh.org
[18] http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan004881.pdf
[19]http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/ai/rti/international/laws_papers/bangladesh/Civil%20Society%20and%20Right%20to%20Information%20in%20Bangladesh.pdf
[20] http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan004881.pdf
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