THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary- September 18, 2017- Topic 2

Confrontational path

On Bangladesh’s Parliament-Judiciary standoff

Bangladesh’s Parliament raised the stakes in a stand-off against the judiciary last week by passing a unanimous resolution to take “proper legal steps” over a Supreme Court verdict nullifying the Constitution’s 16th amendment. The amendment, passed in 2014, had empowered Parliament to remove judges of the Supreme Court found incompetent or guilty of misconduct, based on a two-thirds majority. 

This amendment had in a way restored the power of Parliament to impeach judges and was in line with the original Constitution of 1972. The Supreme Court had in July this year scrapped the amendment, suggesting that it was antithetical to the independence of the judiciary and restored the Supreme Judicial Council, headed by the Chief Justice, with powers to remove errant judges. The Parliament, dominated by the Awami League, not only resolved to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision, but also found fault with Chief Justice S.K. Sinha’s comments in this regard. He had said that the Constitution was a product of the collective will of the people and not just one individual, which was interpreted as an affront to “Bangabandhu”, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, by the ruling Awami League. The largest party in opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is not represented in Parliament as it had boycotted the elections held in 2014. The BNP had welcomed the Supreme Court decision but its position seemed to be guided more by schadenfreude and less by a clear-cut position on the judiciary’s independence.

It is difficult for the polarised polity in Bangladesh to debate any issue without political overtones, let alone one that pertains to separation of powers between the judiciary and legislature. The Supreme Court’s contention is that Bangladesh’s political system is unlike the parliamentary systems in the United Kingdom and India, for example, where legislators are empowered to impeach judges. Bangladeshi MPs do not have the freedom to vote on conscience on issues including impeachment, bound as they are by Article 70 that prevents legislators from voting against their party’s decision on any matter. This prevents a dispassionate deliberation over any prospective impeachment, giving political parties, and those in the executive undue influence over appointments in the judiciary. Instead of taking a course of confrontation against the judiciary, Bangladesh’s parliamentarians and its attorney general would be better off proceeding with a review petition to the Supreme Court and presenting their position dispassionately. The Supreme Judicial Council might have had a legacy connecting it to the country’s authoritarian past, but the arguments of the Supreme Court that it is seeking to protect judicial independence from the executive in light of other laws that bind legislative work in Bangladesh need to be contested by the government point by point — not by a mere resolution.

Vocabulary

Stand-off: a stalemate or deadlock between two equally matched opponents in a dispute or conflict.

Example: The 16-day-old standoff was no closer to being resolved

Synonyms: deadlock, stalemate, impasse, draw, tie, dead heat

Unanimous: fully in agreement.

Example: The doctors were unanimous in their diagnoses

Synonyms: united, in agreement, in accord, of one mind, of the same mind

Nullify: make legally null and void; invalidate.

Example: Judges were unwilling to nullify government decisions

Synonyms: annul, render null and void, void, invalidate, repeal, reverse

Incompetent: not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.

Example: A forgetful and utterly incompetent assistant

Synonyms: inept, unskillful, unskilled, inexpert, amateurish, unprofessional

Impeach: call into question the integrity or validity of (a practice).

Example: There is no basis to searle's motion to impeach the verdict

Synonyms: challenge, question, disparage, criticize, call into question

Scrapped: discard or remove from service, especially so as to convert it to scrap metal.

Example: The decision was made to scrap the entire fleet

Synonyms: throw away, throw out, dispose of, get rid of, toss out

Errant: erring or straying from the proper course or standards.

Example: He could never forgive his daughter's errant ways

Synonyms: offending, guilty, culpable, misbehaving, delinquent, lawbreaking

Interpret: explain the meaning of (information, words, or actions).

Example: The evidence is difficult to interpret

Synonyms: explain, elucidate, expound, explicate, clarify, illuminate

Affront: an action or remark that causes outrage or offense.

Example: He took his son's desertion as a personal affront

Synonyms: insult, offense, indignity, slight, snub, put-down, provocation

Overtone: a subtle or subsidiary quality, implication, or connotation.

Example: The decision may have political overtones

Synonyms: connotation, implication, association, undercurrent

Contention: heated disagreement.

Example: The captured territory was one of the main areas of contention between the two countries

Synonyms: disagreement, dispute, disputation, argument, discord

Conscience: an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior.

Example: He had a guilty conscience about his desires

Synonyms: sense of right and wrong, moral sense, inner voice, morals

Dispassionate: not influenced by strong emotion, and so able to be rational and impartial.

Example: She dealt with life's disasters in a calm, dispassionate way

Synonyms: unemotional, emotionless, impassive, cool, calm, 'calm

Prospective: expected or expecting to be something particular in the future.

Example: She showed a prospective buyer around the house

Legacy: an amount of money or property left to someone in a will.

Example: Bentham tells the family that they are about to inherit a legacy from a relative.

Synonyms: bequest, inheritance, heritage, endowment, gift, patrimony