The chairman and executive director of the Transparency International, Bangladesh on Thursday hoped that they could convince about their findings the Supreme Court’s committee looking into the TIB’s recent survey which found the judiciary to be the most corrupt of the service sectors.
‘We have tried to answer the committee’s queries about the method of our household survey and the sources of information. They kept our statements on the record,’ the TIB’s executive director Iftekharuzzamn told reporters after the meeting on the Supreme Court premises with five senior most High Court judges, who are members on the SC committee.
The Supreme Court’s deputy registrar Badrul Alam Bhuiyan on Wednesday sent an invitation to the TIB chairman, M Hafiz Uddin Khan, member Muzaffer Ahmad and Iftekharuzzaman to for a cup of tea with the judges to discuss the survey based on which a report was launched on December 23, 2010.
Muzaffer could not attend as he fell sick, Iftekharuzzaman told New Age.
The Supreme Court earlier sent three letters between December 28, 2010 and January 6 to the TIB’s executive director asking him to submit all the relevant documents, including questions and answers, of the survey.
The TIB responded to all the letters and provided the Supreme Court with all the documents.
When the committee wanted to know about judges and persons involved in bribery, Iftekharuzzaman said, ‘We have told them [committee members] that the TIB has no specific documents on the person and the court involved in bribery.’
About the number of people who took part in the survey, the TIB said that it had interviewed 6,500 people who went to court.
As for credibility of the survey, Iftekharuzzaman said, ‘It has employed standard sociological survey methods which are so acceptable that there will be no problem if we consider only 3,000 people.’
Iftekharuzzaman, however, said that the TIB in future would increase the number of respondents in surveys.
At a discussion in the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies on December 23, 2010, the TIB said that the judiciary was the most corrupt among the service sectors, followed by law enforcement agencies and the land administration.
The TIB prepared the report based on a household survey conducted between June 2009 and May 2010.
According to the Household Survey 2010, about 88 per cent of people who went to seek services from the judiciary were somehow made victims of corruption; 79.7 per cent of the people who approached the law enforcement agencies and 71.2 per cent who went to the land administration also became victims of corruption.
The TIB report also said that corruption in the judiciary had increased by 40.3 per cent over the last three years. A survey conducted in 2007 found that 47.7 per cent of the judiciary were corrupt.
The Supreme Court in its first letter to the TIB on December 28, 2010, sought all documents saying it had taken the survey seriously and would take appropriate action on the findings.
The decision on sending the letter to the TIB was made at a meeting of the chief justice, ABM Khairul Haque, with 10 senior most High Court judges.
After the TIB had submitted the relevant documents in response to the first letter, the chief justice also instituted a committee to look into the survey.
The Supreme Court in the second letter issued on January 2 to the TIB termed the documents ‘unclear’ and ‘incomplete’ and sought the questions and answers of the survey.
It later issued the third letter to the TIB asking for printed copies of all relevant documents, including the questions and answers, as the compact disc containing the documents that the TIB had submitted could not be read by the committee because of a technical glitch.
The TIB accordingly on January 9 submitted all the printed copies of the survey documents.
On December 27, 2010, the Bangladesh Judicial Service Association, a platform of subordinate court judges, alleged that the TIB had dubbed Bangladesh’s judiciary as the most corrupt institution with an ‘ulterior motive.’
‘The TIB report described lawyers, lawyers’ assistants and court employees as part of the judiciary but according to the constitution only the judges of the Supreme Court and members of the Bangladesh Judicial Service comprise the judiciary,’ the association said in a statement.
