THE 14th Lok Sabha has drawn curtains and Parliament is primarily the forum for the opposition — to enforce government accountability, disagree and debate — the BJP appeared ill at ease in this role.

In fact, the dramatically consistent performer in Parliament, as well as the most active performer by far, was the CPM, a party neither fully government, nor fully opposition, and deftly played a bit of both.

Even regional parties out-performed the BJP in Parliament, the main opposition party now striving hard to win the battle at the hustings. as the main Opposition party, the BJP certainly had more opportunity than most to intervene in and influence proceedings in the House. It failed in itsprimary duty. smaller, regional parties are most often accused of showing lack of interest in national issues.
Also, while the 14th Lok Sabha ended on a dubious record — in 2008, Parliament met only for 46 days, the lowest number of sittings ever, including in an election year — it was not that much worse off than the 13th Lok Sabha.

These themes are framed by data compiled by the New Delhi-based PRS Legislative Research. The CPM’s activism is clear: at the end of the full term, no CPM MP had stayed away from debates in the 14th Lok Sabha or each of the party’s MPs had participated in some debate or the other in the last five years. Compare this to 13 per cent of BJP Lok Sabha MPs who did not participate in any debate.

Given that the figure for those MPs who did not participate in any debate at all is 11 per cent for “other” parties — parties other than the Congress, BJP and CPM — the BJP’s performance is even more telling.

Similar is the story on average attendance. Here, too, the CPM boasts the highest at 79 per cent; “other” parties posted 68 per cent, with the BJP at 67 per cent. The Congress’s attendance was 73 per cent. On an average, the BJP Lok Sabha MP participated in 30 debates in the 14th Lok Sabha; the number is much higher at 47 for the CPM MP; and 33 for the MP from “other” parties. The average Congress MP participated in only 22 debates.

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India: Governance takes a back seat

Gobind Thukral

OF late most public institutions; parliament, judiciary and executive are facing a credibility crisis. Their poor performance and lack of honesty are the reasons for falling from the grace. Imagine the parliament of the largest democracy of the world passing seven important legislations in just 15 minutes. No debate and no arguments even in important matters of criminal justice system. No other parliament except where dictators rule the roost achieves such distinctions. Studies conducted about the working of the Indian parliament and state assemblies reveal lack of seriousness and caution. Assembly sessions in Punjab have often been a just three days affair or 40 hours. Legislators come, attend the house and go back, often marking their presence by walk outs, Slogan shouting and other antics to draw public attention. How come our parliamentarians are marginalising the very institutions which bring them into existence? It is like cutting the branch of the tree on which one sitting. But who cares.

Take judiciary in which the public poses great faith. From top to bottom, many of the judges are involved in corruption and favours. As custodian of the constitution and as guardian angel of monitoring rule of law and equitable governance, it has achievements to be proud of, yet when judges from the Supreme Court, high courts and from the lower rungs are caught in messy corruption, what hopes the citizens can have. Recently two instances of Ghaziabad Provident Fund Scandal and the Punjab and Haryana High Court are indications of the degradation that has set in. Even the chief justice of India, justice K G Balakrishnan is worried man. There are numerous judgements of the Supreme Court which not only nullify the judgement of the high courts, but also make serious comments on these. Same is true about the judgements of the state high courts about the judgements delivered by the lower courts. When we have the same constitution and the same set of laws, we should judgements from these legal bodies differing so much. The judges at many levels could differ on facts of the cases, but should they interpret the laws in vastly different manner. Why should an article of the constitution look black to one and white to the other?

Now take another institution, the Election Commission of India. It is responsible for conducting elections in a fair and free manner and of course with the help of central and state governments. It has been largely successful except that it can neither stop the use of money nor muscle power during the elections. But it has now begun biting more than it can chew. No one knows why it stretched the elections to the Jammu and Kashmir assembly for a whole month and that too during the harsh winter. Same it did in West Bengal and other states. It is packed with partisan retired bureaucrats. With some exceptions, they play games.

What makes the CEC’s action particularly colourable is that it meets the demand raised in the BJP’s petition — submitted first to the President, then filed in the Supreme Court, only to be withdrawn and submitted to the CEC himself in January 2008. Ostensibly, though, the CEC’s “report” rests the decision on different grounds. The BJP had asked for Mr. Chawla’s elimination on the alleged ground that he was tainted by his past association with the Congress and could not function in an unbiased manner. While ignoring his alleged past associations, the CEC has now read bias into Mr. Chawla’s specific opinions on the timing and manner of conducting elections in some States.

They have nothing to do with the standard laid down by the Supreme Court when it observed in T.N. Seshan, Chief Election Commissioner versus Union of India (1995): “The recommendation for removal must be based on intelligible and cogent considerations which would have a relation to the efficient functioning of the Election Commission.” The Court also pointed out that the power was conferred on the CEC to ensure that the Election Commissioners were not at the mercy of the political executive. It was a check on the executive’s powers and a safeguard of the independence of the Election Commission as a whole. The Court cautioned: “If therefore the power were to be exercised by the CEC as per his whim and caprice, the CEC himself would become an instrument of oppression and would destroy the independence of the Election Commissioners and the Regional Commissioners if they are required to function under the threat of the CEC recommending their removal.” This fear of capricious action and of the guardian turning tormentor has now come to pass with Mr. Gopalaswami’s recommendation.

All the Election Commissioners ought to function effectively and independently if they are to live in fear of the CEC recommending their removal for one reason or another, including merely differing with him on some issue. They cannot perform their constitutional functions if the CEC frequently entertains petitions against them from political parties. It is indeed inexplicable why Mr. Gopalswamy has chosen to act in a way that is neither constitutional nor fair.

The saving grace is that the President is not bound to accept the recommendation, particularly when these are beyond the powers of the CEC. He is not the appointing authority and all members are equal in their rights and duties. How come the CEC who is otherwise an administrative head can usurp the right to remove one or the other commissioner? If this power is guaranteed to him, he could remove anyone one any time and thereby wreck the whole system. The chief justice of the Supreme Court cannot remove any judge from the court. He enjoys more powers than a CEC. The CEC has pushed a crisis and his manner is untenable. However it is bound to leave a deep scar on the Election Commission’s credibility and collective functioning.

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Airlines turn modern day slavers

Marwaan Macan-Markar

THE presence of East Asian human trafficking victims in places as far-removed as Southern Africa and Central and South America confirm the ease with which modern merchants of slavery exploit international air travel.

This geographic spread makes East Asian victims stand out when compared with victims from other corners of the planet, according to a report released Friday by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

‘’East Asia was the region of origin of victims trafficked to the widest range of destinations,’’ revealed the ‘Global Report on Trafficking in Persons’, described by the U.N. agency as its first comprehensive report on criminal justice statistics related to human trafficking across the world.

‘’Victims from West Africa may frequently be detected in a few specific countries but are not found elsewhere, as opposed to East Asian victims that may be detected less frequently but are found in more countries,’’ the report states.

‘’East Asian victims were detected in many regions, including Western and Central Europe, North America, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Southern Africa, and, of course, East Asia and the Pacific,’’ the report states. ‘’East Asian victims were also detected in Central America (El Salvador), South America (Venezuela) and Central Africa (Gabon).’’

‘’Outside Asia, East Asians represented a significant proportion of the victims detected in South Africa (Thai victims), the United States (41 percent of the victims detected in 2007 were East Asians) and in a few European countries (Chinese victims in Belgium),’’ the report states.

‘’The trafficking routes coming out of East Asia appeared to be the most diverse,’’ it adds.

In the majority of cases the victims are tricked into travelling voluntarily on airlines, says Christopher Lowenstein-Lom, spokesperson for the Asia-Pacific regional office of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). ‘’The traffickers promise them non-existent jobs in the foreign countries, secure the tickets, passports and the travel documents for the journey.’’

‘’It is only on arrival that the victims realise that they’ve been trafficked into a coercive situation of gross exploitation, slavery,’’ he explained in an interview. ‘’And (they) can’t escape because of the threat of violence, isolation, no common language, no papers and no money.’’

Identifying such victims at airports or on airlines is difficult, ‘’because they still believe that they were going to legitimate, well paid jobs,’’ adds the official of the U.N. agency that has been trying to raise awareness of this scourge through information campaigns that focus on transport hubs, including airports.

Compounding that challenge is the weakness within the airline sector, where some international carriers from poorer Asian and African countries are known to be lax in scrutinising the passengers , says an airline industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘’The traffickers know which airlines are not that strict and can be used to ferry their human cargo without many problems.’’

Airports across the region also offer openings as a supply route for this modern form of slavery, the source added. ‘’Easy visa regulations to fly into some airports have made them transit points. In some airports, the guard is down when people check-in as a group.’’

‘’The loopholes are so amazing; they are unstoppable,’’ adds Imtiaz Muqbil, executive editor of the ‘Travel Impact News Wire,’ a regional travel-industry media outlet. ‘’You need to examine the whole chain from departure to where the victims end to realise the gaps that make trafficking possible.’’

Yet Muqbil confirmed in an interview that this disturbing side of air travel is being addressed by the industry. ‘’The airlines are aware about the problem. They know what is going on and it is being discussed at internal meetings. Some airlines have more rigorous checks of passengers.’’

According to the UNODC report, most of the human trafficking victims from East Asia are women and girls, and often ‘’for the purpose of sexual exploitation’’. Cases of human trafficking for forced labour were also detected.

Consequently, ‘’trafficking for sexual exploitation has been a prominent focus of legislation (in East Asia and the Pacific,’’ states the 292-page report. ‘’As of November 2008, the Republic of South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam had specific provisions on trafficking in persons solely addressing sexual exploitation.’’

But regional efforts have still been unable to curb another feature of the human-trafficking chain where the region stands out - there are a growing number of women, identified as offenders, who draw their compatriots and trap them into a life of misery abroad.

‘’The role of female offenders appears to be predominant in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region and very significant in other regions of the world, such as East Asia and the Pacific, and Central America and the Caribbean,’’ adds the report.

‘’Airlines can help stop this trade,’’ says Lowenstein-Lom of IOM. ‘’They are now expected to look at people’s documents more closely. It wouldn’t do any harm if they looked for potential victims.’’

But ultimately, ‘’the gatekeepers are the immigration officers at all airports where the victims pass through,’’ he added. ‘’(There is a) training focus on immigration and law enforcement officials, who can ask to see employment contracts, ask questions and hopefully identify potential victims.’’ [Courtesy IPS]

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