Music of party-backed non-party, neutral CTG in Bangladesh!!

Interestingly enough, Bangladesh in the past has never experienced any non-party, neutral care-taker government from the point of view of the practical application of the provision, constitutional or consensus, dealing with the appointment to the office of its members of the Council of Advisers. What it met with from 1990 to 2006 to 2007 was either party-backed or army-backed so-called Non-Party, Neutral Care-Taker Government. In fact, the concept of non-party, neutral CTG was first coined and floated publicly by Jamaat-e-Islami in 1994 and then it was formally placed by AL. In 1995 the then Acting Chairman of Jatio Party Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury also put forward his frame of CTG. Commonwealth envoy Sir Ninian’s formula was the magnetic utter of the day while US congressman Stephen Solarz’s move should be taken as a driving force as well.  And finally taking note of all the suggestions, proposals and frames BNP, then in power, absorbed the concept practically putting it into operation through the passage of the Constitution (Thirteenth Amendment) Act of 1996.

It is true that neither any party in the opposition nor a think tank/civil society opposed the very contents of this CTG, which was or less a reflection of the non-party, neutral CTG of 1990. From the standpoint of definite sort of definition, parameter and limitations, it was, perhaps, first of its kind in the taxonomy of politics and political science. But the resultant feedbacks and insinuations with which this non-party, neutral CTG faced again and again paved the way from broader to the broadest for political discontent in a geometric alacrity because of operational appliance and thrusts.

It is on record that in all the four elections from 1991 to 2008 the very spirit of non-party, neutral care-taker government was neglected and set aside on the point of President’s choosing ten members of the Council of Advisers in his own estimation of ‘non-party, neutral standing’ of such persons. Rather those names were chosen and selected by the two major political parties AL and BNP on parity basis i.e. five from each party.  Let us see how fantastically all these occurred in

CTG, apart from its routine powers and functions, was made non-party, neutral putting it on two fundamental pillars namely (a) provisions for appointment to the office of Chief Adviser (Head of CTG) under articles 58C(3),(4), (5) and (6) and (b) provisions for appointment as member of the Council of Advisers of CTG under article 58C(7).

In the first time, in pursuance of the historic seven points formula of 1990, ‘sitting Chief Justice of Bangladesh’ (then Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed) was chosen as Chief Adviser and ten members of the Council of Advisers were appointed by the Acting President Shahabuddin Ahmed on parity basis upon recommendations by the two major political alliance under the leaderships of AL president Sheikh Hasina and BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. Subsequently, in the thirteenth amendment person in sequence for the office of CA was determined and fixed by the clauses 58C (3), (4), (5) and (6) and persons to be appointed as advisers was left to the President under article 58C(7). Important is here the clause 58C (7) that read:

‘‘The President shall appoint Advisers from among the persons who are

(a)   qualified for election as members of Parliament;

(b)   (b) not members of any political party or of any organization associated with or affiliated to any political party;

(c)   (c) not, and have agreed in writing not be, candidates for the ensuing election of members of Parliament;

(d)   (d) not over seventy-two years of age.

But in practice the choice of the persons who were appointed as advisers went too conclusively to the major political parties on parity basis i.e. five from AL’s recommendation and five from BNP’s list.  All these pointedly unfurled the truth that it was a kind of ‘party-backed non-party, neutral CTG’. Therefore, the very foundation of the non-party, neutral CTG was challenged and spoiled by the political parties themselves at the start of it. Hence, it should rather be called ‘party-backed non-party, neutral CTG’.

The question of neutrality of the person as CA was maligned nakedly first in 2004 when the age limit of the CJ was raised from 65 to 67 by the ruling BNP targeting Justice KM Hasan, allegedly said to be a pro-BNP person, as the next CJ so that he might be the immediate last past CJ to lead the next  third non-party, neutral care-taker government and secondly by preferring ‘supersession’ by the incumbent ruling AL in 2010 with a view to appointing ‘political choice’  as CJ and thus the office of the CJ fell victim of politics for suiting the very purpose of the party in power on different period of time. As an inevitable consequence, the very ‘constitutional choice’ under article 58C (3) and (4) got transformed into ‘politico-constitutional choice’, Later centering this ‘politico- constitutional choice’ in place of ’non-partisan constitutional choice’ crisis cropped up and developed to such an extent that finally put an end to the constitutional longevity of the so-called non-party, neutral CTG through the Fifteenth amendment on 2011 following a verdict of the SC of Bangladesh that declared the system as unconstitutional and illegal.. Not only this that it was due to the failure of the major political parties AL and BNP to follow the constitutional route or to find out a mutually reasonable acceptable path to overcome the impasse that virtually brought the country to a halt that the very army-backed non-party, neutral CTG was born in Bangladesh in 2007, which lasted about two years.

Now, oppositions demand for the revival of the Non-Party, neutral CTG is again rotating along the same line of ‘politico-constitutional choice’ for the appointment of members of the Council of Advisers and Chief Adviser (since this office shall never be held by a retired chief justice or retired justice of the Appellate Division of Supreme Court any more following the verdict of SC). Whether there shall be any non-party, neutral CTG in future in line with the verdict of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh that is not the issue here to be discussed. What is important here is that reality unfolds the truth all over again that here political parties are, in fact, cautiously after a party-backed non-party, neutral CTG under the cover of highly talked-about no-party, neutral CTG. What, what a bewildering music of historic double standard it is!!!