X

Bangladesh needs stronger environmental policy

If the current take-care government (a.k.a. CTG) wants to get significant result on re-couping the canals, roads, forests to restore the livelihood of general public, to restart the process of re-vitalizing the environment both for the urban, rural and forest areas, it has to make a policy decision with the help of the Supreme Court.

Criminals had taken over Bangladesh. The whole Bangladesh.

None of the organs of the governance was left out – not even judiciary.

The current chief justice has said it again, that the judicial system has been in a state of misery. The justice system was serving the corrupts. The most significant part of his recent statement was the acknowledgment that Judges are not the only culprits, rather lawyers bears the more burden (probably) than the justices themselves. But we do not intend to talk about justice system specifically, rather our focus today is to point out one specific issue.

The burden of corruption is immense on the nation. It will take years of effort of rebuilding, rethinking and reconstruction to reach where the nation ideally should be. But for now, there is a crying need to take some effective measure to restore some semblance in the public life.

Say for example, if a canal has been encroached by the culprits and Wasa or other agencies want to take over the canal, dig it and free the people of the cities from water-logging, they cannot do it. Why? There is a court order. What an irony of Rule of Law!

Records show that there was a canal. People know it. Now somebody build an high-rise building with cooperation of some culprits in the past governments, some culprits in the agencies and probably some mess-up in paper / regulation handling. Based on that some culprit in the High-Court bench issued a stay order. So, thousands of people has to wait year after year with knee-high water in their homes. What an example of Rule of Law!! Shame on Law!

We think its a right time for the CTG to seek advice of the Supreme Court to see if there is a possibility within the law to issue an summary order to nullify all the court stay order that restricts the environment revitalizing efforts by the government agencies. We think there is a good possibility for that within the law, if the government organize a class action suit on behalf of the citizens of Bangladesh and on behalf of the environmental agencies. In response to that class action suit or summary suit, two things can happen.

Supreme Court can suspend or stay all the stay orders that restrict work of the agencies. The individual complains of stay orders do not have to be decided at the beginning, rather the government will decide which ones are of public importance and later vetted by the CJ or the Supreme Court bench. Whenever the agencies are faced with a stay order from the High-Court issued in the past, the agencies will be bound to notify the office of the Chief Justice with 72 hours to make sure that they know the specific stay order is being deemed as nullified by the Supreme Court order and thereby make sure the works of public importance is not stopped for some silly technical / procedural reason deemed important by some silly corrupt judges.

The second option is the Supreme Court may suggest the government that it can use the power vested up it to promulgate a new ordinance nullifying all the stay orders of High Court that is deemed to be making obstruction of work or slowing down the works of public importance. However, whenever the government decide to ignore a stay order from the High Court, it will be bound by law to notify the office of the Chief Justice within 72 hours of doing so.

We think this is something that the government will have to do in a priority basis.

If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the members of the CTG, SC, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.

Article by : Innovation LineIf the current take-care government (a.k.a. CTG) wants to get significant result on re-couping the canals, roads, forests to restore the livelihood of general public, to restart the process of re-vitalizing the environment both for the urban, rural and forest areas, it has to make a policy decision with the help of the Supreme Court.

Culprits had taken over Bangladesh. The whole Bangladesh.

None of the organs of the governance was left out – not even judiciary.

The current chief justice has said it again, that the judicial system has been in a state of misery. The justice system was serving the corrupts. The most significant part of his recent statement was the acknowledgment that Judges are not the only culprits, rather lawyers bears the more burden (probably) than the justices themselves. But we do not intend to talk about justice system specifically, rather our focus today is to point out one specific issue.

The burden of corruption is immense on the nation. It will take years of effort of rebuilding, rethinking and reconstruction to reach where the nation ideally should be. But for now, there is a crying need to take some effective measure to restore some semblance in the public life.

Say for example, if a canal has been encroached by the culprits and Wasa or other agencies want to take over the canal, dig it and free the people of the cities from water-logging, they cannot do it. Why? There is a court order. What an irony of Rule of Law!

Records show that there was a canal. People know it. Now somebody build an high-rise building with cooperation of some culprits in the past governments, some culprits in the agencies and probably some mess-up in paper / regulation handling. Based on that some culprit in the High-Court bench issued a stay order. So, thousands of people has to wait year after year with knee-high water in their homes. What an example of Rule of Law!! Shame on Law!

We think its a right time for the CTG to seek advice of the Supreme Court to see if there is a possibility within the law to issue an summary order to nullify all the court stay order that restricts the environment revitalizing efforts by the government agencies. We think there is a good possibility for that within the law, if the government organize a class action suit on behalf of the citizens of Bangladesh and on behalf of the environmental agencies. In response to that class action suit or summary suit, two things can happen.

Supreme Court can suspend or stay all the stay orders that restrict work of the agencies. The individual complains of stay orders do not have to be decided at the beginning, rather the government will decide which ones are of public importance and later vetted by the CJ or the Supreme Court bench. Whenever the agencies are faced with a stay order from the High-Court issued in the past, the agencies will be bound to notify the office of the Chief Justice with 72 hours to make sure that they know the specific stay order is being deemed as nullified by the Supreme Court order and thereby make sure the works of public importance is not stopped for some silly technical / procedural reason deemed important by some silly corrupt judges.

The second option is the Supreme Court may suggest the government that it can use the power vested up it to promulgate a new ordinance nullifying all the stay orders of High Court that is deemed to be making obstruction of work or slowing down the works of public importance. However, whenever the government decide to ignore a stay order from the High Court, it will be bound by law to notify the office of the Chief Justice within 72 hours of doing so.

We think this is something that the government will have to do in a priority basis.

If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the members of the CTG, SC, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.

Article by : Innovation Line

Noakhali Barta:
Related Post