The government has decided not to ratify a good number of necessary ordinances considering the fact that those were promulgated during the caretaker rule.
As many as 122 ordinances were promulgated during or immediate before the last caretaker government’s tenure. But a special committee of parliament on February 15 made its final recommendation for ratifying 54 ordinances.
The committee said it recommended for those staying within the bounds of its jurisdiction provided by the article 58 (D) of the constitution. It also considered some other ordinances, which are related to public interests.
Following the recommendations, the government decided not to ratify 68 ordinances including some important and necessary ordinances like the local government commission ordinance, upazila parishad ordinance, Anti-Corruption Commission (amendment) ordinance, private university ordinance, attorney service ordinance, insurance control authority ordinance, insurance ordinance, mobile court ordinance, and Bangla Academy ordinance, among others.
Barrister Rafiq-ul-Haque, eminent jurist who was a member of the expert panel formed by the law ministry to scrutiny the ordinances, yesterday said the government can place new bills before parliament for the dropped ordinances if it is found necessary.
Law Minister Shafique Ahmed placed the ordinances in parliament on January 25, on the first sitting of the ninth parliament. The ordinances require ratification in parliament for their passage into laws. If the ordinances are not approved by the parliament within 30 days since first sitting of parliament, they will cease to have effect.
Eminent jurist Dr Shahdeen Malik yesterday told The Daily Star it is unfortunate to drop many ordinances without considering the contents as the caretaker government promulgated those.
“The decision to enact or not enact new laws from the ordinances seems to have been made based on an interpretation of Article 58 (d) of the constitution which did not take into account the actual necessity of these ordinances,” he said.
The deciding criteria seem to have been whether the caretaker government was authorised to promulgate those ordinances or not, he said, adding the requirements or the necessity of the ministries and the other institutions of the government for these laws were not considered that is quite unfortunate for the nation.
Experts say the country’s local government bodies will be weak if the upazila parishad and local government commission ordinances are not ratified.
Dr Tofael Ahmed, member of defunct local government commission, last night told The Daily Star the local government bodies could be effective and strong if the ordinances on commission, upazila parishad, city corporations, municipality and union parishad were ratified.
University Grants Commission Chairman Prof Nazrul Islam on Friday night told The Daily Star he met the education and the law ministers and urged them to ratify the private university ordinance. “The ordinance was an important step to bring private universities under strict discipline,” he observed.
The Attorney Service Ordinance, 2008 was promulgated to set up an attorney department and ensure transparent and impartial recruitment of government law officers.
A Government Attorney Department was already set up under the ordinance, which allows it to recruit government attorneys for lower courts. But the government decided not to ratify this ordinance as well.
The Supreme Judicial Commission is still functioning, but the government did not place the ordinance on it before the House.
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