Exec magistrates’ power to operate mobile courts restored

The cabinet on Monday approved the Mobile Court Bill 2009 in order to revive the executive magistrates’ authority to operate mobile courts for summary trial of the perpetrators of some specific offences.
The home affairs ministry placed the bill at the weekly cabinet meeting in the secretariat with the premier, Sheikh Hasina, in the chair.
‘The cabinet has approved the Mobile Court Bill, thus reviving authority of the executive magistrates to operate mobile courts for summary trials to maintain order and contain offences more effectively,’ the prime minister’s press secretary, Abul Kalam Azad, told reporters after the meeting.
The executive magistrates will now get back the power to take cognizance of some specific offences, he added.
The government’s move came at a time when judicial magistrates expressed their willingness to operate mobile courts because of deterioration in the law and order situation and increasing incidents of crime and malpractice like food adulteration and land-grabbing due to the absence of the mobile courts.
The bill will be tabled in the Jatiya Sangsad in its ongoing session, said officials. Once the bill is passed by the parliament as a law, the executive magistrates will regain their power to summarily try some offences under 75 laws, ostensibly to help maintain law and order and keep criminal activities in check.
On June 16 the Supreme Court issued a letter, seeking the law ministry’s opinion of the operation of mobile courts by both metropolitan and judicial magistrates to curb crime, maintain law and order and check food adulteration.
The executive magistrates, who are administrative cadre officials of the government, were stripped of judicial powers on November 1, 2007 with the separation of the judiciary from the executive through an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure.
In the face of demand by the administrative cadre officials, the army-controlled interim government on October 29, 2007 promulgated the Mobile Court Ordinance 2007, empowering executive magistrates to operate mobile courts and hold summary trials of perpetrators of some specific offences under 28 laws.
The ordinance, however, ceased to have effect as the present parliament, in its first session, did not pass it as law.
As per the draft bill, the district magistrates may delegate the authority to executive magistrates, through written orders, to operate mobile courts in their respective jurisdictions for maintaining law and order and containing offences. The mobile courts can only fine the offenders and, on refusal to pay the fine, the convicts can be awarded a three-month simple imprisonment, says the draft bill.
The law enforcement agencies, along with other concerned organisations, will be bound to give necessary assistance to executive magistrates in operating mobile courts, according to the bill.

Courtesy of NewAgebd