Law minister places new ordinance to hold bar council elections in unusual situations

Law Minister Anisul Huq placed the Bangladesh Legal Practitioners and Bar Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021 in parliament today, with a provision allowing the government to form an ad-hoc committee with a maximum one-year tenure to arrange bar council elections amid unusual situations.

The Cabinet on July 26 approved it, and later President Abdul Hamid promulgated the ordinance on July 28.

The ordinance was promulgated as parliament was not in session at that time. As per the constitution, the ordinance was placed in the first sitting of the Jatiya Sangsad session for its approval.

As per the ordinance, if the regular bar council election cannot be held by May 31 after every three years, the government can form a 15-member ad-hoc committee, chaired by the attorney general, for a maximum of one year.

In the existing Bangladesh Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Order, 1972, there is no alternative provision if regular elections cannot be arranged in time due to any natural disaster or "acts of God".

The existing order said elections to the bar council shall always be concluded before the "thirty-first day of May" in the year in which the term of the bar council expires.

As per the new ordinance, elections to the bar council shall conclude on or before May 31 in the year in which the term of the bar council expires.

It says if elections to the bar council cannot be held within the time specified in the clause due to a pandemic, epidemic, act of God, or for any other unavoidable circumstance as may be determined by the government from time to time, the government may, by notification in the official gazette, constitute an ad-hoc bar council consisting of 15 members for a term not exceeding one year, and this term shall not be further extended.

The attorney general shall be one of the members of the ad-hoc bar council and shall also be its chairman, it said.

"Notwithstanding anything contained in any other provision of this Order, the Ad-hoc Bar Council shall exercise such powers and functions of the Bar Council as specified in this Order and the rules made thereunder," the ordinance says.