Parliamentary Governance in Bangladesh: Focus on Quorum Crisis

Abstract

In the parliamentary form of government, parliament plays two types of roles, i.e., legislative role and administrative role. Based on the constitutional provision parliament, formulates laws for the country as well as makes the administration accountable. The effectiveness of the parliament depends on the capacity of the parliament to use its instruments on these issues. The precondition of the parliamentary session is the presence and participation of the Members of the Parliament (MPs).The effectiveness of a parliamentary session primarily depends on the fulfillment of quorum in the parliamentary session. Ensuring quorum is one of the significant roles of parliamentary governance. Very often, Bangladesh's parliament suffers from a quorum crisis and makes a huge loss of time and money. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the quorum position in the Bangladesh parliament and its consequences. Article 75(2) of the Bangladesh constitution ensured the presence of a minimum number, not less than sixty MPs to be present before starting the session and during the session. A study of TIB (Transparency International Bangladesh) found that the ruling Awami League has 274 lawmakers in the parliament still, the 18th session witnessed over 152-hour quorum crisis which cost BDT 1.25 billion from the public fund.