Law minister vows no return to past abuses
Photo: Agamir Somoy
Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman said Bangladesh will never turn back and incidents like enforced disappearances, murders, political killings, politically motivated harassment cases, restrictions on freedom of expression, and human rights violations that occurred over the last 17 years will never happen again.
He made these remarks as the chief guest on Monday at a discussion meeting titled “Beyond The Ballet: Between Promise and Perfomence”, organized by the Center for Governance Studies.
Asserting that the BNP will implement the July Charter, Asaduzzaman added, “I have said in Parliament that a law named the ‘July Charter Implementation Order’ needs to be enacted to implement this charter. The question may arise, why was an ordinance not made? Because if anything equivalent to a constitutional amendment is done, it conflicts with the constitution. It is not possible to issue any ordinance that is equivalent to a constitutional amendment. For this reason, we pursued an order rather than an ordinance.”
He further clarified the legal status of such an order, explaining that according to the first and third schedules of the constitution, the authority to issue such orders ended on the very day the constitution took effect in 1972.
Although authorities enacted some laws through presidential orders in 1972 - which held the equivalent status of law - the constitution specified that the president would no longer hold the power to issue such orders once it became effective.
Asaduzzaman explained that parliament must pass laws, and the president must issue ordinances only when parliament is not in session.
He noted, “But here, a path has been left open to create division by doing something misleading. BNP is clearly and explicitly saying - we want to stay on the path of the July Charter and want to move forward along that path. Keep faith and trust in us; we will be able to reach the logical place of that reform.”
