Amendments hurt judiciary

The constitutional amendments made by the governments of Awami League, BNP and Jatiya Party have undermined the independence, transparency and image of the Supreme Court, a House committee has said.

The parliamentary standing committee on the law ministry has come up with the observation, describing the four amendments to article 96 of the constitution that deals with retirement age of judges and their removal on grounds of misconduct or incapacity.

The committee in its report prepared on scrutiny of the constitutional amendment bill blamed the amendments of 1975, 1979, 1986 and 2004 when the AL, BNP, JP and again BNP were in office respectively. 

The report, placed in parliament yesterday, said the original constitution empowered the House to impeach SC judges and the provision was more democratic and balanced.

The fourth amendment in January 1975 curtailed the parliament's authority, empowering instead the president to remove SC judges.

On this change, the report said it was done to keep consistency with the change of the government system.

Through the fourth amendment, the country switched to the presidential form of government, discarding parliamentary democracy.

Article 96 was again amended through unconstitutional means in 1979 during Gen Ziaur Rahman's military rule.

In fact, Zia modified the article in 1978 through a martial law order and introduced the Supreme Judicial Council to remove SC judges, by curtailing the president's powers.

The Fifth Amendment in 1979 validated this change along with all other amendments to the constitution made by Zia through martial law orders and all activities of the martial law regime since August 15, 1975.

The committee termed “ill-motivated” the two other modifications to the article brought by the seventh and the 14th amendments in 1986 and 2004 by JP and BNP-led governments.

Through the seventh amendment, the retirement age of SC judges was increased to 65 from 62 and the 14th amendment raised it to 67.

The 2004 amendment, the committee said, was aimed at making a particular individual the head of the caretaker government at the end of 2006, which led to the declaration of emergency rule (on January 11, 2007), hampering the constitutional process.

The committee, however, defended the proposed changes to the article to empower parliament to remove SC judges, despite growing controversies over the move.

"This amendment was proposed to return to the spirit of the constitution of 1972. I want to firmly say that there is no political motive behind it," said Suranjit Sengupta, chief of the parliamentary body, in the report. 

The committee recommended the House pass the amendment bill by scrapping the preamble of the bill and the statement of the law minister attached to the copies of the original bill.

It said the preamble of the bill included irrelevant information about the previous amendments, which may create confusion.

The committee also found irrelevant facts in the law minister's statement and rewrote it.

Officials in the parliament secretariat said the bill might be passed on September 17.