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People who deal with enactment of the law should have knowledge of the law first
Tasmiah Nujiya Ahmed of DOT :
The bill on the Road Transport Act was passed in order to ensure people’s safety and life security on road as well as to ensure the accountability of the people involved in road transport sector; particularly that of the bus and truck drivers, helpers, owner, and their associations. According to section 1(2) of Road Transport Act-2018, the government has to issue another gazette notification to make the law effective, but the government is yet to issue any such gazette notification. However, the government is yet to issue that gazette notification to make the law effective.
Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), a rights organization; has sent a legal notice yesterday to the government to make the Road Transport Act-2018 effective through issuance of a gazette notification within the next seven days from 10th April 2019. The legal notice was sent to the secretaries of the Cabinet Division, president, prime minister, Ministry of Public Administration, Ministry of Law, Ministry of Home and Road Transport and Bridges Division.
Just a month back, in March of this year; I presented a paper on the Road Transport law of Bangladesh at a Conference on Road Transport and Policy of Bangladesh. For doing so, I needed to know the date of issuing the gazette notification to make the law effective. For that I had to speak to the Ministry of Law and also to the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges Division. However, they informed me that they are not aware of any such provision of law and accordingly they couldn’t inform me the date.
In this circumstance, my observation is that prior to passing a law, we must ensure people who deal with enactment of the law should have knowledge of the law first. If the Ministry comes up with this sort of response that it has no knowledge about such provision of law; then what would be the impression of general people on them. General people expect the people working in Ministries must have clear knowledge of law before the law is passed. To ensure due implementation of law, it is also vital that these people have clear knowledge of the law.
The writer is an Advocate of Bangladesh Supreme Court and Executive Editor of Daily Our Time.