Dhaka: The government is actively considering to enact a new law for banning hartal as overuse of the political weapon has made life of people miserable and the economy at stake.

As per a decision taken on Tuesday by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Private Members’ Bill and Decision, the law will be enacted treating calling or enforcing a non-stop hartal as a criminal offence, said a parliament source.

In the draft proposal placed in the Jatiya Sangsad standing committee meeting, they suggested the government that it should take recommendations of top politicians regarding the law banning hartal and incorporate their suggestions in the draft of the proposed law.   

Earlier the JS body proposed brining some changes to the People’s Welfare Bill-2010 which was placed in the Jatiya Sangsad and suggested putting ‘hartal’ in the place of ‘Political Programmes’ for placing the bill in the House anew.  

But before formally placing the bill in parliament, the opposition lawmakers suggested the government take opinions of the top opposition politicians.

In the JS body meeting, lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties took part in a discussion on on-going hartal which was presided over by JS committee chairman Abdul Matin Khasru. Members of the committee  whip ASM Firoz, Junaid Ahmed Palak and Syeda Asifa Ashrafi Papiya took part in the discussion in presence of concerned parliament secretariat officials.  

The meeting sources said, during the lively discussion the lawmakers proposed finding out an alternative to destructive hartal programme. At that time the anti-hartal bill which was placed in parliament in 2010 came up for discussion in the meeting. The bill titled “People’s Welfare Bill-2010” was formally placed in JS by Jatiya Party lawmaker Mujibul Haque Chunnu in 2010 and JS body meet discussed it in details. Later both the lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties called for placing it afresh by bringing in some changes to the bill.

After the meeting, committee chairman Abdul Matin Khasru told journalists, “The committee members called for preparing a draft of the bill showing non-stop hartal calls as criminal offence. The decision was taken in the meeting to ban hartal as the political parties have the right to call hartal. On the other hand people too have the right to defy that hartal. So forcing people to observe hartal is legally illegal. And the law should be enacted so that nobody could impose hartal o unwilling people.”  

The lone opposition lawmaker in the committee, BNP lawmaker Syeda Asifa Ashrafi Papiya called for taking opinion of the top opposition politicians before placing the bill in parliament. She told journalists that hartal turns vicious tool when the party remains in power and it turns effective tool when it goes in the opposition. So if the bill is passed right now then the next ruling party might scrap it, so before passing the bill all opposition and top politicians, specially ruling AL chief and BNP chairperson, should be consulted. And the committee could collect their opinion regarding the issue by sending representatives to them, Papiya added.

Ends/OSR/AMA/09/04/13