of widespread ‘low level’ bribery. The April 2004 act that extends the 2002 ‘Speedy Trial Act’ for two years is set to impact both these phenomena in complex and even opposing ways. While increasing the speed of trials may prevent certain types of ‘low level’ bribery, it may exacerbate the use of the judiciary for political ends. The main objective of the act is to speed up the settlement of cases that have direct bearing on social violence and on the poor state of law and order in the country, both of which are popularly perceived to be on the rise in Bangladesh. In this regard, the notorious reputation of the Bangladeshi judiciary for slowness is richly deserved. Delays of several years have been reported in respect to child and sexual abuse cases for which the law requires a verdict within 90 days. The crimes covered by the act include extortion, destruction of public and private goods, public assault, intimidation causing anarchy, and violation of tender procedures. Under the law, investigations of these crimes should be completed within seven days of filing a case; the accused should be brought into the court within 24 hours; and a case should be settled within 30 days (60 days if the accused has absconded). While the act does not specifically address the topic of corruption, the settling of such cases within a specific time frame could have a substantial impact on a major source of graft in Bangladesh. One particularly widespread technique of corruption has
been for judicial officers to slow down judicial processes in order to compel the parties to pay bribes to achieve a judicial verdict. Indeed, the popular term for a bribe in Bangladesh is ‘speed money’. Gains in the area of ‘low level’ bribery for speedier trials may, however, come at the cost of exacerbating other forms of corruption. Critics of the act have argued that the law can be easily misused by the government to intimidate its opponents. Opinion polls conducted by TI Bangladesh have suggested that about one quarter of the cases heard under the Speedy Trial Act have been politically motivated. The country’s opposition parties have all expressed objections to the law. Reporters without Borders and the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication have also protested against the misuse of the law to arrest journalists, including Abdul Mahbud Mahu of the local daily Ajker Desh Bidesh and Hiramon Mondol, a reporter for the daily Prabartan, saying that the journalists had no time to prepare a defence.1 A further worrying effect of speedy trials is that an increasing number of the accused are not present during their trials. There also seems to have been a lack of thought about the implications of accelerated trails for other areas of the judicial system. No additional resources were allotted to cope with increased activities of the courts or to deal with the knock-on effects in higher courts of appeal. Md. Abdul Alim (TI Bangladesh)
Further reading Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Developing a Policy Agenda for Bangladesh: Civil Society’s Task Force Reports 2001 (Dhaka: 2003) Federation of Bangladesh Chamber and Commerce Industry (FBCCI), The Cost of Doing Business Study (Dhaka: 2004) Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), Corruption Database (Dhaka, 2003) TI Bangladesh: www.ti-bangladesh.org Note 1. See www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7778 and www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9282
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