The executive has monopolised all powers into their hands, says a study conducted by Transparency International, Bangladesh.
The executive has been given all authorities, making way for abuse of power, said TIB Chairperson Sultana Kamal yesterday.
The study conducted on 15 institutions said although the legal framework is strong, the implementation and practice are largely inadequate. Extreme lack of transparency is noticed among all sectors, it added.
The findings were released at a press conference held in the capital’s BRAC Centre Inn.
The institutions are parliament, executive, judiciary, public administration, police, election commission, supreme audit institution, local government, anti-corruption commission, national human rights commission, information commission, civil society, political parties, media and business sector.
The study said separation of powers between legislative, executive and judiciary are uneven and dominated by the executive.
Besides, partisan biasness in decision-making, absence of legal provision to disclose executive decisions and annual disclosure of income and wealth were mentioned as the major weakness of the executive.
It added: “Police are held hostage to ruling party as recruitment, transfer and promotion depend on political affiliation, nepotism and bribery. Also, the law enforcers work outside public scrutiny. The whole administration is characterised by corruption, inefficiency and partiality.”
Speakers said the absence of strong internal governance in political parties, civil society and the media likewise has exacerbated the governance challenges that confront the country’s integrity system today.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB said, “We have identified two major obstacles in establishing integrity — political influence and lack of transparency.”
Sultana Kamal said: “We noticed the authorities concerned avoid duties where they should act responsibly. Sometimes innocent people got caught and the criminals roam around in broad daylight. In Limon’s case, we found that he is innocent. But he is being harassed due to case backlogs.”
She added: “Strong synergy among the NIS pillars is crucial for the system’s overall effectiveness as weaknesses in one or more pillars will affect others.”
The survey said the EC is seemingly weak in living up its mandate evident from its failure to withstand pressure of the ruling party and local administrations in the electoral management process.
The ACC is found filing and withdrawing cases while NHRC has inadequate legal framework to ensure transparency and integrity of commissioners.
The survey mentioned confrontational political culture, tendency among elected political parties to treat government as an apparatus of their own political party, lack of internal democracy and political fundraising and use and criminalisation and commercialisation of politics as weakness.
“Inadequate academic, analytical and technological skills are the weakness of media people,” said TIB researcher Professor Salahuddin M Aminuzzaman.
TIB placed 55 recommendations for each institution, including enactment of laws or rules for further empowerment of the executive committee system to ensure and strengthen oversights on the executive and public bureaucracy and appointment of deputy speaker from the opposition.
Speaker should resign from the party position after being elected and the draft code of conduct bill for MPs must be enacted as law.
It said political parties must not give party membership to identify criminals of convicted persons (at least for a certain period after their punishment) with a view to decriminalising the country’s political arena and it should practise internal democracy.
TIB researcher Sumaiya Khair said: “Within the Bangladesh NIS, a dysfunctional parliament, an all-powered executive, an exploited judiciary, an increasingly politicised bureaucracy and police force have essentially eroded the checks and balances that are pivotal to good governance.”