Lawyer-lawmakers decreasing
Says Speaker Abdul Hamid
Speaker Abdul Hamid yesterday said number of lawyers is gradually decreasing in parliament as people do not like those lawyers who make money by sucking people's blood and bluffing them.
“Quality lawyer-cum-MP is very important in parliament to enact good laws. But time may come when there will be no lawyer in the House. Even it may happen that parliament will have to appoint lawyers seeking their assistance in formulating laws,” Hamid said at an induction programme.
The Dhaka Taxes Bar Association organised the programme at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in the capital.
Lambasting a section of lawyers, Hamid said there are lawyers in the High Court who do not work for less than Tk 5 to 6 lakh from their clients.
“They [the lawyers] are not lawyers for people, rather they are lawyers for corrupt ones,” the Speaker said. “People give them appropriate reply when those lawyers contest the national election.”
Sources at the parliament secretariat said at present businessmen and industrialists are the majority in parliament, marginalising lawyers and people belonging to other professions and deteriorating the quality of parliament's function.
Law, business and farming were the three most common occupations of MPs elected in the country's first parliament in 1973. The highest number, 75 MPs of total lawmakers, were lawyers.
But in the seventh parliament constituted in June, 1996, only 47 MPs were lawyers.
Only 25 MPs were lawyers in profession out of 300 lawmakers elected in 2001.
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