Are bureaucrats a class above the rest?
We fully agree with the High Court that bureaucrats in Bangladesh have been negligent in their duties because they don't consider the public their friends. In fact, there have been plenty of instances in the past where our bureaucrats have demonstrated a certain level of contempt towards the public, seeing themselves as much superior to ordinary citizens, as the court rightly pointed out. This misconstrued perspective of reality that they hold has been one of the major factors that has regularly led to increased public suffering.
Despite the fact that in any civilised society with a working democracy – one we, too, should aspire to – bureaucrats, even those at the highest levels, should consider the public the source of all their power, the attitude of many bureaucrats in Bangladesh continues to be different. A perfect example of this has been the LGRD secretary's office's refusal to comply with a High Court order to dispose of two applications for creating "an accounting and audit department" at municipality offices. The court issued the directive more than five years ago, which was later upheld by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in 2020. Yet, the LGRD ministry has had the audacity to completely ignore the court's directive. And this is not a rare occasion where something like this has happened. The court itself has observed that some secretaries don't abide by court orders, but feel embarrassed to appear before the court when directed to.
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In recent years, we have seen how the government has continually obstructed numerous investigations into alleged corruption and mismanagement by bureaucrats. The media has also reported how the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), for example, did not take up cases against government officials due to internal and external pressure. As ACC investigators themselves admitted to the media, had the ACC taken some actions against top bureaucrats, it would have created instances where government officials would not dare commit corruption. But in the absence of such accountability, it's not surprising to see that bureaucrats have begun to consider themselves above the law.
In fact, the attorney general himself told the apex court that the parliament had passed the Government Service Act, 2018 to protect public servants, considering them a "different class of people." When the act was passed, we had mentioned in this column that it was discriminatory against the public and anti-constitutional because it protected public servants against prosecution in ways that ordinary people were not.
When the law of the land itself is bent in ways that are anti-constitutional in order to grant special privileges to bureaucrats, why wouldn't they see themselves as being above the law? When allegations against them are routinely swept under the rug, and political parties start to rely on bureaucrats to hold onto power, naturally they would want a return on their investment. The increased arrogance of our bureaucrats on full display is the result of poor governance and institutional failures. Unless there are systemic changes in governance, with accountability at its centre, the public will continue to suffer due to bureaucratic negligence and arrogance.
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