Presidential clemency challenged

A rights organisation yesterday challenged a constitutional provision that empowers the president to pardon any convict.
Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh submitted a petition to the High Court, saying that the Article-49 allowing the president to pardon death-row convicts was contradictory to some other provisions that guaranteed fundamental rights of the people.

"The president shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority," the provision says.
As many as 21 death-row convicts have reportedly got presidential mercy in just three years from 2009 to 2011 while 25 others were relieved of their sentences in 39 years between 1972 and 2011, the rights organisation cited in the petition.
In every case, the president's power was misused to pardon convicts on political consideration, it said.
The petitioner also said there were huge loopholes in the article, and a group of privileged people had enjoyed the presidential clemency to the frustration of the victims who had been deprived of justice.
Everybody is equal in the eye of the law and has the right to justice, which is violated when a convict gets mercy from the president, it added.
The rights organisation has prayed to the HC to issue a rule upon the government, asking it to explain why the article should not be declared unconstitutional and against the fundamental rights.
The senior secretary to the president's office, principal secretary to the Prime Minister's Office, secretaries to the cabinet division, Jatiya Sangsad and legislative and drafting division of the law ministry and the home ministry have been made respondents to the rule.
A hearing on the petition is likely to be held before an HC bench today, petitioner's counsel Manzill Murshid told The Daily Star.