Legislative process in our parliament is claimed to be an upshot of the Westminster parliament. Like the Westminster, here government businesses are prioritised over private member initiatives for law making. However, unlike the Westminster, opposition and backbencher voices in Bangladesh are effectively muted to the advantage of the government’s aims to have its laws passed. Whereas the mother of parliaments itself has evolved extensively in favour of the members’ right to reasonable debate, ours is trailing miles behind both institutionally and procedurally. A comprehensive reading into the Rules of Procedure (RoP) of our parliament seems to suggest that MPs’ right to reasonable debate in the floor, committee and elsewhere is given a mere cosmetic gloss by severely restricting the scope of opposition to government bills and resolutions. Unlike the British government, we don’t see any comprehensive legislative agenda from the government. Driven by a tendency of ad hoc-ism, most of...