Editorial
Food, when it is foul
Like that old maxim, it can be said that what you do not see does not harm. Thus, what we are eating in the flashy and expensive restaurants in Dhaka maybe are stale sauce, putrid prawn and fetid fish, but as long as they taste delicious we do not mind paying the astronomical sums with saintly smiles on our faces. As long as the food looks good, smells good and has been served in time we are happy. We never wanted to visit the kitchens of these classy restaurants as we had taken it for granted that a good portion of the profit must have been set aside for keeping the kitchens and the food ingredients in spick and span condition. But, we were literally petrified reading the reports that some of the popular restaurants have been selling food cooked with stale substance and harmful chemicals and serving those to the unsuspecting customers. We understand that a mobile court comprising Dhaka metropolitan magistrates and members of the law enforcing agencies has been going around inspecting some popular restaurants in the city and unearthing unpalatable facts that would make anyone fall sick just by reading them. The team discovered adulterated ingredients, stale food and harmful chemicals in the kitchens of some big names in the restaurant business. The hygiene conditions inside these kitchens were found to be in pitiable order. Among those fined for the appalling conditions inside their kitchens are restaurants and fast food joints that have been using some globally known brands and that have taken their regular customers totally by surprise. If, therefore, the confidence level of the customers has plummeted now, it is only the restaurateurs who are to be blamed.
Citizens are all praise for the timely action taken by the relevant authorities and they welcome the report that the dodgy restaurateurs have been fined and also sentenced to short-term prison terms by the magistrates. While one must say thank you to the authorities for cracking down on the big restaurants, one would also like to ask them why such inspections are not carried out on a regular basis, such as once a month, and also in smaller restaurants where a majority of people have to eat on a daily basis. Questions also surface as to how these restaurants have been getting their yearly certificates from the inspection authorities. Possibly the answer is that most of the restaurateurs know of other dubious ways to obtain relevant certificates without having any physical inspection done at all of their premises. Such malpractices over the years have caused standards to go down and yet the restaurateurs have carried on their business on the good names already established in the market. A distinctively good job has been done by the authorities and we urge them to keep it up for upholding the rights of the citizens.
Police behaviour and media centres
Time and again we have come across reports highlighting the hostile and aggressive attitude of the police towards the common people and many a time we have also exhorted the authorities to take steps in this regard. However, the common people in many cases are victims of an unfriendly attitude from the people in uniform and this has gone for such a long time that most civilians do not regard an encounter with the law as a pleasant one. That is a rather strange thing to happen in these modern times when policemen are supposed to be the ones to whom people turn for help every time they need such help. Fortunately, a recent report informs us that the Dhaka metropolitan police have taken measures to make their officers polite and well behaved. As part of this programme, as many as 400 sub-inspectors are being trained.
Obviously, this is good news because it is only natural that if the police officers are friendly and helpful towards the public much of the negativity that is currently plastered on their image will fall off; and needless to say that this will do the police a whole lot of good because relentless accusations of corruption have made their foundation, indeed their professionalism, absolutely precarious and in a number of instances controversial.
However, the good news does not end there because we are further informed that a media centre for the force will operate and this office managed by sub-inspectors will maintain constant liaison with journalists. Naturally, if the centre works properly, meaning to the satisfaction of citizens, we will get to know a lot of information about what is going on. But before such a body begins its operations, the authorities must ensure that the media cell is not misused to suppress data and information regarding controversial cases.
As we praise this step by the DMP to get closer to the people, we would also like to ask for a training of sergeants and traffic policemen on the street. From a rational point of view, their training on civilised behaviour is of more importance because they are the ones who have the most communication with the people. A traffic sergeant stopping a car to check the papers can create a good impression if, instead of making an imperious gesture, he uses courteous language. In addition to carrying out their traffic duties, sergeants on the roads are also members of the force with the responsibility of maintaining the law. On that line, if they are amiable they become approachable and thus may be of help to many street and road users who may face a variety of problems.
Some give and take in govt
and opposition essential
Given the composition of the political parties responding to the on-going talks initiated by the Election Commission on the voters’ list, to begin with, it does not appear that the Chief Election Commissioner in his relative obscurity, even in his erstwhile exalted position as a Supreme Court judge, will inspire much confidence, and hence promote meaningful participation in such and many other dialogues on the issues at hand and in store
Lest one forgets or feigns innocence, the non-party and neutral Caretaker Government entered the text of the Bangladesh Constitution with the surrender of the ruling political parties’ prerogative to preside over the interim period preparatory to national polls and the transfer of power. The caretaker system was introduced in 1991 when a long-raging mass movement, spurred by the joint declaration of the three alliances, with the Jamaat on the sidelines and the military stepping aside, saw the fall of former General HM Ershad. It was consensual across the board. The law of necessity, so to speak, invested the then Chief Justice, Shahabuddin Ahmed, with the authority of the country’s all-powerful presidency and his return to the post upon completion of the 90-day term and transfer of power, albeit by bending the Constitution and a post-dated ratification of the switch by the newly elected Parliament.
The advisors were drawn from the preferred lists submitted by the three alliances in particular, though the prerogative of choosing them finally resided with the chief executive, in this case the caretaker President. The wholesome conduct of the polls, and the all-pervasive sense of well-being and euphoria among the members of the public, lent the theory and the practice of a caretaker mechanism the legitimacy of popular sanction after the 1991 polls. Thus, when it was made an issue by the AL in 1994-96, it rang a welcome bell in the public mind for ending the unremitting street confrontations — a hallmark of the AL when out of power. It is, however, interesting to note that a constitutionally mandated Caretaker Government was not on the cards of the Awami League and the BNP in the post-Ershad electoral contest. Both stayed true to the constitutional practice in which the sitting government would function as the interim/caretaker entity during the transition preparatory to holding of the national polls and transfer of power. The five-party left and the Jamaat held on to the idea of a caretaker system for the purpose of free and fair elections and proposed their respective constitutional formulations towards that end. While the Jamaat made it to Parliament with ups and downs in 1991 and 1996 respectively, the left — now splintered into eleven or more groups — reduced itself from a nominal single representation of Rashed Khan Menon in 1991 to a zero.
The amendment follows the parliamentary pattern under which the Chief Advisor, the immediate-past Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the country, steps into the shoes of the Prime Minister, and the President, as usual, continues to stay on as a titular figure, but for the rhetorical text to the effect that the Chief Advisor and his Cabinet of 10 Advisors are responsible to him in the discharge of state functions. The second point of departure is that the Chief Advisor, unlike the caretaker President of 1991, is not obliged to appoint Advisors from the lists supplied by the political parties represented in the Parliament or otherwise carrying political credence in democratic struggles. The two marked differences of the successive Caretaker Governments from that of 1991, as mandated by the Constitution, give them the unique authority as any other legally constituted government, except in matters of broad policies in defence and foreign affairs and the awards of economic and developmental import, controversies about the latter notwithstanding.
The administration and the placement of officials in it are also the preserves of the Caretaker Government for the maintenance of law and order and also for ensuring neutrality of the officials, particularly at the field level. And once the election schedule is announced, the Caretaker Government withdraws into day-to-day administrative and political functions while meeting the requisitions of the statutory body of the Election Commission in terms of providing the law and order manpower and other necessities, if any. In other words, the Caretaker Government under the 13th Amendment is as potent as any other legally constituted representative government. It is not a nominal referee for overseeing the polls only, but can also steer the ship of
the state.
If these points are considered, the joint reforms proposals of the AL-led alliance for changing the caretaker system with unspecified procedures for the ‘consensus’ choice of the Chief Advisor, and denial to the Caretaker Government of any role whatsoever in such administrative matters as transfer of personnel, are tantamount to having no government at all. Besides, it is a constitutional absurdity since the two-thirds majority of the ruling alliance in Parliament holds the key to such changes. It cannot be decided on the streets — at least not after the whimpering fiasco of the AL’s ultimatum of April 30, 2004. The opposition can only achieve the reforms of its own preference amounting to ‘heads-I-win and tails-you-lose’ by undoing the Constitution and with it the government — a very tall order under any comparable circumstances.
It will, however, be altogether one-sided if the blame of strategic opportunism and blind adventurism is put on the shoulders of the AL-led opposition solely. The government provided the AL with an excuse on a platter when it amended the Constitution to raise the retirement age of the Supreme Court Chief Justices to 67 from 65. The move became instantly suspect as it was seen to be a ploy to enable the immediate-past Chief Justice KM Hasan to fit the bill of eligibility for the post of the Chief Advisor. In fact, it was the immediate cause. The last ultimatum of April 30, 2004 did not include the demand of bringing about drastic changes to the 13th Amendment, but only boasted of the imminent fall of the government. Similarly, the government could have conveniently pre-empted the predictable response of the opposition to its choice of the Chief Election Commissioner by initiating some discussions on the proposed names with, and asking for suggestions from, the opposition. It could have avoided the thorns, unavoidable though they are, with relative openness, and not by the going the AL way whole hog in such matters during the latter’s 1996-2001 tenure.
Given the composition of the political parties responding to the on-going talks initiated by the Election Commission on the voters’ list, to begin with, it does not appear that the Chief Election Commissioner in his relative obscurity, even in his erstwhile exalted position as a Supreme Court judge, will inspire much confidence, and hence promote meaningful participation in such and many other dialogues on the issues at hand and in store. But as to the appointment of the Chief Advisor, former Chief Justice KM Hasan can come to his own aid and that of the government, and ensure constitutional continuity, by declining the post in view of the controversy surrounding him. He had past links with late President Ziaur Rahman’s government. Chief justice Hasan, then a member of the bar, was a political appointee as Ambassador to Iraq in the late seventies.
— Enayetullah Khan
from hospital, Toronto
Simultaneously published in
New Age & Holiday
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