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Download PDF The government is about to finalise a new law for launching the Truth and Accountability Commission to prevent corrupt persons from participating in any election and holding public offices and posts in financial organisations for five years without trial.
The constitution and the Emergency Power Rules (EPR) already have provisions to imprison and bar the corrupt from election for the period of conviction and appeal.
But the power of the Truth Commission in this regard will be sweeping as the bar comes as a consequence of the punishment of depositing ill-gotten wealth to the state exchequer following voluntary disclosure of their offences.
The much-talked-about Truth Commission will be constituted for six months under the Voluntary Disclosure Ordinance 2008, which is now in the making.
Law Adviser AF Hassan Ariff told journalists on March 20 that the government will form the commission in a month.
The idea of Truth Commission emerged last year as an alternative to dealing with graft cases and graft suspects to give the offenders opportunity to admit their culpability and be penalised monetarily instantly instead of prolonged legal process and conviction by courts.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and other agencies concerned are now scrutinising the draft of the ordinance. They will give their opinions on it and the ordinance will be sent to the law ministry for vetting after the cabinet approves it in principle before giving the final nod.
Any person who makes such voluntary disclosure before the Truth Commission shall be disqualified for a period not exceeding five years from holding any public or elected office including parliament, zila parishad, upazila parishad, union parishad, municipality, city corporation, or any trade organisation and professional body.
They will also be barred from being appointed as chairman, member or director of any statutory corporation or authority created by law or any office under the constitution.
The Truth Commission will notify the Election Commission about any such order, which will be “conclusive proof of disqualification” of a person.
However, this provision will not apply for a person “who applies to the commission for making a voluntary disclosure seeking leniency” and for those who have already deposited any sum in Bangladesh Bank upon admitting their involvement in corruption and later make voluntary disclosures to the Truth Commission.
According to the draft ordinance, corruption and corrupt practices include offences mentioned in the schedule of the ACC Act 2004, Foreign Exchange Act 1947, Income Tax Ordinance 1984, Value Added Tax Act 1991, and Customs Act 1969, evasion of any government revenue including stamp duty, registration fee and any other charge or levy imposed by any law or rules, or contravention of any provision of the Bank Company Act 1994.
On full compliance and implementation of the Truth Commission’s order within a timeframe, a person dealt with leniently by the commission will stand exonerated from the criminal liabilities as contained in their voluntary disclosure.
The Truth Commission, on full compliance and implementation of its order, will seal the exoneration of criminal liability for such corruption and corrupt practices which from then will be a conclusive proof for their exoneration.
On the need of forming the Truth Commission, the draft says, “It is considered necessary to establish a Commission to lessen the burden of prosecuting and proving offences and save the overburdened legal system from being preoccupied with dealing with corruption cases for a long period risking further backlog in the courts.”
It also says the caretaker government pledged ridding the country of “pervasive” and “ingrained” corruption, “but prosecution for such widespread corruption has been diverting the focus from and hampering the much needed acceleration of economic and industrial growth”.
Several sources, however, said it is the army-led National Coordination Committee on Corruption and Serious Crime (NCC) that conceived the idea of forming the Truth Commission after realising that it would take a long time to put all graft suspects behind bars, which may not be possible before the upcoming general elections.
Since the caretaker government undertook a mission to bring reforms in politics and bar any corrupt person from contesting the parliamentary elections, it was looking for a way to ensure that the corrupt people cannot take part in the upcoming elections, said the sources.
Although there are provisions in the constitution to bar a person or disqualify a convicted person from taking part in parliament elections for a certain period, the caretaker government included in the EPR a clause with the provision to bar people from election as it realised that many corrupt suspects may not be kept off the parliamentary or local government elections as per the constitutional provisions.
As per the EPR, any person convicted of corruption by a trial court will be disqualified from contesting any election until adjudication of their appeal against the verdict. No convicted person will ever be able to hold any job related to the government, according to the amendments to the rules.
Presently if someone is convicted of corruption at a lower court, they can participate in elections by filing an appeal with a higher court or even by obtaining a stay order on the lower court verdict.
The constitution says, “A person shall be disqualified for election as, or for being, a member of parliament who has been, on conviction for a criminal offence involving moral turpitude, sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than two years unless a period of five years has elapsed since his release.”
After assuming power on January 11 last year, the caretaker government reconstituted the ACC and formed the NCC in February to make the anti-corruption drive a success.
Sources in the NCC said they primarily had a list of 420 graft suspects and the number was likely to go up gradually. But so far, they have succeeded to deal with only half of it.
The NCC’s role is to investigate into graft to collect information and evidence and then refer the matters to the ACC to initiate legal steps against the persons on the NCC list.
Since February 2007, the ACC has issued notices against 280 high profile corruption suspects. Of them, 174 have been sued while 102 cases are still being investigated. Judgments have been given in 37 cases.
There are also several other corruption cases against high-profile politicians where the ACC has failed to complete investigation.
Trial is yet to begin against Tarique Rahman, BNP’s senior joint secretary general and son of former premier Khaleda Zia. Tarique is facing 12 cases for offences including extortion and graft.
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