‘Executive magistrates can’t convict children’
The High Court yesterday scrapped the convictions and jail sentences handed down by the executive magistrate-run-mobile courts to juveniles across the country.
The court observed that the process under which executive magistrates convicted and sentenced 121 children through mobile courts is inhuman and in violation of human rights.
"It has damaged the reputation of our judicial system. The magistrates need proper training," the HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Md Mahmud Hasan Talukder said after hearing a suo muto rule issued by it earlier.
The court also declared actions of executive magistrate-run mobile courts convicting children and sentencing them to imprisonments for different tenures on criminal charges illegal and unconstitutional.
It directed authorities concerned of the government to immediately release any children convicted and sentenced by mobile courts, if there are any in custody.
The HC observed that executive magistrates cannot convict and sentence children through mobile courts, whatever their offences are, under the Mobile Court Act, 2009.
At best, executive magistrate-run mobile courts can forward the children if they are accused of any charge to the Shishu Adalat (children's court) for trial under the Children Act 2013, it said.
Such mobile courts cannot even record confessional statements of children, as competent magistrates have to record confessional statements from children in presence of their parents or legal guardians under the Children Act 2013, the HC observed.
An executive magistrate-run mobile court had reportedly taken confessional statements from 23 children in Shyamali Shishumela and Farmgate areas in only 32 minutes, which is absurd and unacceptable, it said, adding that it shows that executive magistrates concerned of the mobile court do not have a minimum respect for the rule of law.
By convicting and sentencing children, the mobile courts have acted as a parallel of the judiciary, which is an affront to the basic structure of the constitution, the HC said.
Executive magistrates who run mobile courts play the roles of prosecutor and judge simultaneously, which is contradictory to articles 33 and 35 of the constitution, the bench added.
Following a news report published on Bangla daily Prothom Alo, the HC bench on October 31 last year issued the rule asking authorities to explain why the conviction of children by mobile courts should not be declared illegal.
According to the newspaper report, mobile courts illegally jailed 121 children for six months to one year and sent them to juvenile correction centres in Tongi and Jashore.
Barrister Md Abdul Halim and Advocate Ishrat Hasan placed the newspaper report before the HC bench for necessary orders. The same day, the HC bench ordered the government to immediately release children -- aged under 12 years -- who were convicted by mobile courts at various times and kept in juvenile correction centres across the country.
The court said children [under 12 years] have no understanding of consequences of offences, and therefore cannot be convicted by mobile courts and kept in correction centres.
It also granted six months' bail to children -- aged between 12 and 18 -- who were convicted by mobile courts and kept in the correction centres.
They will be released subject to the satisfaction of the children's court concerned, after furnishing bail bond, the HC said.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam and Deputy Attorney General Bipul Bagmar represented the state.
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