Monjurul Kabir
United Nations
The erosion of legislative scrutiny in Bangladesh has reached a point where the procedural safeguards meant to ensure deliberative democracy are being systematically bypassed. Recent developments in the Jatiya Sangsad reveal a troubling pattern: bills are being introduced as supplementary business, distributed to lawmakers’ moments before tabling, and passed through sheer numerical majority without the debate, committee referral, or public consultation that parliamentary rules mandate.
The cumulative effect is a legislature that functions more as a rubber stamp than as a forum for accountable governance. This article investigates the issue and provides some important indications of essential reforms to tackle the challenges.
Procedural Violations and Democratic Deficit
Under the Rules of Procedure of the Bangladesh Parliament, a bill once introduced should ordinarily be referred to a standing committee, a select committee, or circulated for public opinion before further consideration. Established practice further dictates that members of parliament receive copies of a bill at least three days before its introduction. Both norms were disregarded in the case of the Invest Bangladesh Act of 2026, copies of which were distributed only moments before it was tabled, precluding any substantive engagement by lawmakers.
The Bangladesh Medical University (Amendment) Bill and the Public Examinations (Offences) (Amendment) Bill were likewise introduced as supplementary business without prior notice. These are not isolated lapses; they point to a systematic strategy of expediting legislation by circumventing the very procedures designed to ensure quality and consensus.
When the ruling party deploys its parliamentary majority to pass bills unilaterally while disregarding the objections of opposition members, the distinction between a democratic legislature and an authoritarian chamber becomes uncomfortably thin. The ease with which bills sail through parliament without amendment or contestation raises the fundamental question of whether the legislature is performing its constitutional duty of scrutinizing executive proposals or merely endorsing them at speed.
The comparison to the authoritarian era is not rhetorical flourish; it is a structural observation about the concentration of legislative power in the hands of a parliamentary majority that faces no effective procedural constraint.
Standing Committees: Oversight Undermined from Within
Even more damaging than rushed bill passage is how parliamentary standing committees are composed. These committees hold ministries accountable, examine spending, and scrutinize policy implementation, and their credibility rests on independence from the executive. Yet in the current parliament, a state minister already facing several alleged conflicts of interest sits on the standing committees overseeing the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Placing a cabinet member on a committee meant to oversee another ministry is contradictory. How can someone from the executive credibly examine a peer ministry when their own political future depends on the same party and leadership?
This appointment guts oversight at its root. No parliament since 1990 has allowed such a practice, which itself is a warning sign. If standing committees lack genuine independence, parliamentary accountability collapses entirely, no matter what the constitution or procedural rules say on paper.
The July National Charter and Broken Commitments
The July National Charter explicitly stipulates that opposition members should chair the Public Accounts Committee, the Committee on Privileges, the Committee on Estimates, and the Public Undertakings Committee. It further provides that opposition lawmakers should chair approximately twenty six percent of ministry related standing committees, proportional to their representation in parliament.
The failure to honor these commitments transforms the charter from a binding reform roadmap into a mere document of aspiration. When the ruling party retains chairmanship of accountability focused committees, the opposition is denied the institutional platform it needs to discharge its constitutional role, and the government is freed from the cross examination that competitive democracy demands.
The discrepancy between the promises of reform and the reality of committee formation also casts doubt on the sincerity of the ruling party’s thirty-one-point reform agenda and its election manifesto. If commitments made in the heat of a political transition are abandoned at the first opportunity, the signal sent to citizens is that reforms are rhetorical devices for gaining power, not structural commitments to governance change.
The Path Forward: Institutional Reinforcement
Article 78(5) of the constitution provides a basis for enacting new legislation, through consultation with all stakeholders, to strengthen the authority and effectiveness of parliamentary committees. Such legislation is overdue. Without legal mechanisms that enforce minimum scrutiny periods, prohibit supplementary introduction of bills without prior notice, and mandate opposition chairmanship of accountability committees, the rules of procedure will remain guidelines that the majority can ignore at will.
The inclusion of women in parliamentary committees must also be treated as a structural requirement, not a discretionary gesture. Every directly elected woman member of parliament should be appointed to at least one standing committee, and the four committees specified in the July National Charter must each include at least one-woman members.
Legislative shortcuts are never costless. Bills passed without scrutiny may contain drafting errors, ambiguities, or provisions that serve narrow interests at the expense of the public good. Standing committees staffed by executive loyalists cannot perform their constitutional function. The longer these practices persist, the harder they become to reverse, because each erosion of precedent normalizes the next. The solution is not to trust the self-restraint of any majority; it is to build institutional constraints that make circumvention difficult, visible, and politically costly.
