The President of Bangladesh Prof. Iazuddin Ahmed has appointed Justice Mr. M M Ruhul Amin as the 16th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to replace the outgoing Chief Justice, Mr. Mohammad Ruhul Amin. The appointment was officially announced yesterday (25 May 2008). The local media of Bangladesh, quoting the senior lawyers of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), reported that the appointment of Mr. MM Ruhul Amin as the Chief Justice supersedes Justice Mohammad Fazlul Karim, who is currently the senior most amongst the Appellate Division judges. Justice MM Ruhul Amin will assume office as the Chief Justice on June 1 taking oath from the President.
According to the media reports, the president of the SCBA, Barrister Mr. Shafique Ahmed said, “Although supersession has also taken placed in appointing Chief Justice and Appellate Division judges during the past governments, the Bar has never accepted such supersession. . . such supersession has led the people concerned to apprehend political ill-intention of the government.” Quoting the SCBA president the reports said that the SCBA will not hold its felicitation on June 1 when Justice M M Ruhul Amin will first appear in his Court as Chief Justice. The SCBA will also refrain from giving a traditional farewell felicitation to the outgoing Chief Justice Mohammad Ruhul Amin on 29 May. This abstention from the customary practices of the SCBA of honouring the outgoing and the newly appointed Chief Justice is held to be a mark of protest against the Appellate Division’s recent verdict that barred the highest Court from hearing bail petition of any accused under the Emergency Powers Rules-2007.
The country’s media also reported that Justice KM Hassan and Justice Syed JR Mudassir Hussain were earlier appointed Chief Justices on 22 June 2003 and 26 January 2004 superseding their senior colleagues Justice M Ruhul Amin and Justice Fazlul Karim during the BNP-led four-party alliance government. Justice M Ruhul Amin and Justice Fazlul Karim were, however, elevated to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court superseding their senior colleagues in the High Court Justice KM Hassan and Justice Syed JR Mudassir Hussain during the Awami League government.
The media reports apparently show that there is a culture of supersession in appointing and promoting judges in the Supreme Court, including the appointment of the Chief Justice of Bangladesh. The judges are appointed and promoted by political choices instead of their seniority in service. This promotes injustice within the judiciary and makes rooms for further injustice to be melted out against the citizens of the country.
Such practices in other jurisdictions like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan have proved to be counterproductive to the independence of judiciary. In certain cases some good judges, when promoted overlooking the seniority of other senior colleagues, have refused to accept such appointments and promotions and have even resigned to save the judiciary from political clout. On a similar footing the judges in Bangladesh who are not inferior to their fellow judges in other jurisdictions must make sure that the judiciary in Bangladesh is equally capable of claiming independence from the executive.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) condemns Bangladesh’s terrible culture of dillydallying with the highest judiciary jeopardizing the rule of law of the country.
