Bangladesh celebrates Constitution Day today with the main opposition BNP-led alliance continuing with its protests pressing for restoration of election-time caretaker government system abolished by the latest (15th) amendment to the country’s constitution.
The day this year bears special significance as the nation faces a serious political crisis over the tenth Jatiya Sangsad polls to be held by January 24, 2014.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led opposition alliance continued its protests pressing for election-time interim government, while the Awami League-led ruling alliance opts for an
election-time government headed by the incumbent prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
Different organisations have taken elaborate programmes marking the day.
The nation observes the Constitution Day on November 4, as on this day in 1972 the Constituent Assembly adopted the written constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh after its emergence as a sovereign country in 1971 through a war of independence.
The constitution came into effect on December 16, 1972, the first anniversary of the victory in the war of independence.
The country’s 41-year journey of constitutional rule was interrupted time and again by martial law and marked by a series of amendments which changed the very basic character of the charter and interrupted democracy for which Bangladesh fought the liberation war.
The constitution has undergone 15 amendments with the first one done just seven months inside its enforcement.
The Supreme Court has so far scrapped three of the 15 amendments in entirety and one partially.
On February 2, 1010, the Appellate Division struck down the fifth amendment.
It scrapped the 13th amendment on May 10, 2011 and the seventh amendment on May 15, 2011.
On September 2, 1989, the apex court had partially struck down the eighth amendment relating to the 1988 decentralisation of the High Court.
The High Court, however, on June 8, 2011, after hearing a writ petition filed in 1988, asked the government to explain the legality of the eighth amendment which declared Islam as the state religion.
The same bench in the same petition issued a similar ruling in July 2011, as the 15th amendment was enacted on June 30, 2011 with retention of Islam as the state religion.
No other amendments, however, have yet been challenged in the Supreme Court.
The constitution was amended for the first time on July 15, 1973 enabling the government to enact laws to put war criminals on trial.
The second amendment was made on September 22, 1973 making provisions for proclamation of a state of emergency and empowering the government to make laws on preventive detention.
The third amendment made on November 28, 1974 endorsed the Bangladesh-India land boundary treaty.
The fourth amendment, made on January 25, 1975, was regarded as the one which made the most controversial changes in the constitution which saw the country switch over to a one-party (BKSAL) rule and the presidential form of government.
The country’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated before the fifth amendment was made on April 6, 1979, ratifying the martial law period between 1975 and 1979, inserting ‘Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim’ before the preamble and abolishing ‘secularism,’ one of the basic principles of the constitution on adoption in 1972.
The sixth amendment, made on July 10, 1981 after the assassination of president Ziaur Rahman, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party founder, to enable the then vice-president Justice Abdus Sattar to contest the presidential polls.
The constitution went through its seventh amendment on November 11, 1986 ratifying the martial law of HM Ershad, founder of the Jatiya Party.
The eighth amendment of June 9, 1988 declared ‘Islam’ the state religion of Bangladesh. It also made provisions for decentralisation of the High Court by setting up its benches in major cities.
Provisions for elections to the offices of the president and the vice-president were made by the ninth amendment on July 11, 1989, while the 10th on June 23, 1990 gave a 10-year extension to the provision for reserved seats for women in the parliament.
The 11th amendment on August 10, 1991 made provisions for the return of Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed to the office of the chief justice after discharging duties as the acting president of the first interim government, formed in December 1990 after the fall of Ershad.
The country returned to the parliamentary form of government through the 12th amendment on September 18, 1991, which set a rare example of consensus between the treasury and opposition benches.
The election-time caretaker government was made a law through the 13th amendment on March 28, 1996.
The 14th amendment in 2004 stipulated that political parties would have woman representatives in reserved seats proportionate to their representation in parliament. It also extended the retirement age of the Supreme Court judges.
Parliament on June 30, 2011 passed the much-talked-about 15th amendment, making sweeping changes to the constitution, including abolition of the caretaker government system, but retaining Islam as the state religion and ‘Bismillah’, amid boycott by the opposition.
-With New Age input
