In the observation it was also said that exchange of abusive and vulgar words and non-parliamentary language took place between the ruling Awami League and main opposition JP lawmakers. MPs of both the parties attacked and criticized their political rivals, including especially BNP, those were outside Parliament. The study said, MPs have used non-parliamentary language at least 2,101 times against the parties outside the Parliament and 433 times against the rivals in Parliament. They used such language spending 15 percent of the total time of the sessions, which is violation of the Section 270 (VI) of the Rules of Procedure of Parliament, the TIB study added.
The study covered 103 sittings of Seventh to 13th Session which were held between September 2015 and December 2016. In these sessions the Sangsad experienced an average 28 minutes of quorum crisis on each working day and a total of 48 hours and 26 minutes was wasted due to it, which is 12 percent of the total time of the Seventh sessions. The study referred to the estimated cost of conducting the sessions also and said, an average of more than Tk 1.62 lakh is needed per minute to conduct sessions. On the basis of this estimate, Tk 47.20 crore was wasted due to quorum crisis in the seventh sessions. Regarding the Speaker’s role the TIB study added, in most cases the Speaker played a silent role when MPs used such abusive words and non-parliamentary language. In order to make the Parliament more effective, TIB has presented an 11-point recommendation, including formulation of a law on the Code of Conduct of MPs.
TIB’s report is no revelation and no surprise. We need free election for electing nice and decent people. In politics, inside and outside the Parliament, some kind of indecent and intolerant language is used habitually.
